


G. I. Joe - Cause and Effect - Book One

by kurthoppe1973



Series: Cause And Effect [1]
Category: G.I. Joe - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8187115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurthoppe1973/pseuds/kurthoppe1973
Summary: Years after the official G. I. Joe is shut down as a result of the apparent defeat of Cobra, a new war story begins. The team must be assembled again to fight for freedom, wherever there's trouble.





	1. Old Lives Renewed

***

###  _Detroit Metropolitan Police Precinct_  
 _Fourth District, Detroit, Michigan_  
 _0600 hours, local time, 18 September, 2000_

The city of Detroit has been a dichotomy of peace and war for years, much like many of the major metropolitan areas of the United States. Where large groups of people clustered together, clamoring for the available jobs, resources, property, and so on, some would try to make their lot in life work, and others simply took advantage. Standing the fine line between, were the brave protectors in blue, policemen and women sworn to serve the public good.

Sunlight began to peek over the rooftops of the row houses and low office buildings that dominated the skyline in the mixed-residential Fourth District of the city of Detroit. While mostly a peaceful section of the city, it also had a very high crime rate and the drug trade was creeping into the neighborhoods quickly, thanks to gangs and their Colombian organizers from the infamous Medellin Cartel. The relative peace existed through the gangs allying themselves to profit from drugs, more so than the efforts of the cops to control them.

The besieged Detroit Metropolitan Police Department was beginning to have a full-fledged fight on their hands, as they worked night and day to stem the flow of illegal narcotics onto the city streets. The authorities seemed to be winning major victories, snatching multi-million dollar shipments of South American product before it was even unloaded for distribution. But on the streets, violence against the police was heavy. The efforts of the hardworking patrolmen and detectives in the parts of the city that served as smuggling gateways annoyed the Colombians to no end. And they believed in retribution. Their leaders, safe in capacious South American _haciendas_ and surrounded by ill-gotten gains and hired firepower, believed in going to great lengths to make revenge happen.

The shift change between overnight and day watch had just begun in the district’s main Detroit Metro Police precinct house. Weary patrol officers, pairs of SWAT operators and Narcotics Division detectives dragged themselves into the precinct building for hot showers and a quick debrief by their division lieutenants before heading for home and their comfortable beds.

Other officers were just coming on duty, but the long hours of counter-drug operations and responding to calls of drug-related violence on top of keeping the general order didn’t make them look any fresher than the men and women they were relieving.

Senior Patrolman Jason Faria, a Captain’s Selectee for promotion to sergeant, steered his unmarked, police-package Chevrolet Caprice down the neighborhood streets toward the district’s headquarters. Faria, a former Detroit SWAT cop, and then a former G. I. Joe who went by the code name of Shockwave, had returned to his hometown when the counter-terrorist team was disbanded in 1995. The city department had fully welcomed both his return and the experience he gained fighting domestic terrorists in the Cobra organization, assigning him to the toughest call outs in some of the worst sections of Detroit.

Faria’s assigned SWAT partner, a blond-haired, six year veteran of the Detroit force, yawned and unbuckled the straps to his lightweight Kevlar body armor. Both men were tired from a long night of serving hostile apprehension warrants, rousting crack houses and arresting their proprietors.

“I can’t believe how many of these places we have to hit on a weekly basis, partner,” Faria said to his passenger. “No matter how many times we break them up, they seem to just come back overnight.”

“Yup,” Faria’s partner said curtly. “I don’t know how long we can handle this duty. Running fourteen or sixteen hour shifts and five or six full-on "guns and bullets" raids in a week. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if we’re in a tight spot and someone yawns in the middle of cooking off some nine-millimeter around those crack heads and their innocent hostages.”

“I know,” Faria replied. “But the good news is the shift’s over and we have two days off to recover…”

His voice trailed off, as the plainclothes cruiser rounded a corner and the precinct house came into sight. A large armored truck, marked with the colors of Detroit’s local bonded courier service, careened down a side street and tore right up the cement front steps to the precinct, running over a number of uniformed patrolmen that were taken by surprise and couldn’t dodge it in time.

The sound of a gut wrenching crash echoed up and down all the streets in the immediate vicinity followed by explosions of the glass panes of the precinct house’s windows. Sparks flew as severed high-voltage power lines that ran into the building broke free and fell to the sidewalk, dancing back and forth from their deadly energy discharges. Smoke began to pour from the front doors of the precinct house, as the truck’s engine heat ignited leaking oil and fuel from its lines.

“Holy shit!” Faria finally exclaimed after a moment of stunned disbelief, slamming his foot hard on the gas pedal of the black squad car and feeling the drive wheels squealing and vibrating as the Caprice accelerated towards the carnage. Other cops who were spared from the impact began to rally and formed a perimeter to keep the pedestrians a safe distance away. Some of the men spoke frantically on their radios, trying to reach the city’s main communications center or the desk sergeants inside.

The precinct house was an older building, constructed in the 1900’s and renovated several times over. The crash of the armored truck fractured a number of the natural gas heating lines that had been installed near the front of the building. Patrolman Faria detected the strong, pungent scent of natural gas as he and his partner hustled out of their cruiser to help the injured civilians and cops on the sidewalk.

“Twenty-two sixteen to Central Dispatch!” Faria shouted on his SWAT band radio, which was on a different network than the precinct house patrol frequency. “Roll all available fire equipment, utilities and medics to Fourth District! We have a code one, mass casualty emergency! Someone’s driven a truck right into the precinct house! Alert the hospitals! Send help right away!”

“I’m going in to try to help get guys out!” Faria’s partner shouted, brandishing a PR-24 nightstick to clear out glass from the broken front windows on the ground level. Some of the precinct’s employees began to stagger out of side doors and emergency exits, cut and bleeding, while the rear door of the armored car swung open.

Faria thought quickly when he saw a single male in civilian clothing slip out of the back of the armored truck. He sprinted down the last fifty yards of sidewalk that separated him from the suspect. With a hefty amount of steam in his step, he tackled the suspect quickly, smashing him down into the solid concrete sidewalk.

Both men cringed and pressed themselves as flat as possible when the smoking engine block of the armored truck set off the leaky gas lines. A massive secondary explosion tore the front wall of the precinct clean off, tossing large chunks of masonry and stone across the street, along with torn and burned bodies of the cops still trying to escape from inside.

Patrolman Faria clutched at his right leg, where a falling chunk of masonry had barely missed both men, but struck a glancing blow on the lower part of his thigh. When the suspect began to wriggle, in another attempt to escape, Faria returned to the task at hand. He rapidly corralled the man’s wrists and jerked them back roughly, handcuffing him in a fluid, instinctive motion. He didn’t want to keep his anger in check when the guy under his weight had hurt so many of his buddies. For a moment, he gave in to his anger and slammed the suspect’s face hard into the sidewalk, but the man kept struggling as if possessed.

The suspect had the typical “superhuman” strength that was induced by a narcotic high. Faria almost broke one of his own wrists before he had the writhing and screaming suspect under control and secured. Unwilling to take a chance, the policeman leaped onto his feet and drew his service automatic, leveling the 10mm Smith and Wesson at the back of the suspect’s head.

“Whoever you are, you’re under arrest for the pre-meditated murder of all those cops and civilians in there, including my fuckin’ partner!” Faria snarled. His finger twitched against the cold metal trigger and the pistol shook in both hands as he forced it to stay steady and zeroed on the suspect. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. But I really hope you try to keep resisting arrest, you drugged out son of a bitch. Because you don’t deserve to survive this little incident you caused…”

 

***

###  _Headquarters, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency_  
 _Washington, District of Columbia_  
 _0830 hours, local time, 23 September, 2000_

In the penthouse of a lavishly appointed Federal office building, part of the complex that housed elements of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, Director Carl Stewart of the DEA reclined in his office chair, reading several reports from the field. His two key deputies sat on a sofa in the room, while a consular officer from the Department of State sat in on the brief meeting, in a plush armchair near the Director’s desk.

Stewart moved to put his reports down on the surface of his dark mahogany desk, and looked out the thick, tinted glass panes of his picture window at the metropolitan Washington D.C. skyline. He rubbed his chin silently as he thought about the contents of the documents. A few heartbeats of silence passed before he turned to address his aides and visitor.

“I take it you’ve read the SITREPs from the local agencies in New York, Detroit, and New Orleans,” Stewart said, looking his guest from State in the eyes, and noticing the subtle nod from the dark-suited man in return. “Every time we make any sort of headway domestically in breaking up the smuggling efforts of the Medellin and Cali cartels, things like these happen.”

Stewart tossed the briefing folder across the desk in frustration, letting out a grunt of disgust. “Three major cities all get attacked, by car bombers doped out on crack cocaine or heroin. The single perpetrator that was interrogated in Detroit claimed that the drug organization threatened his family if he didn’t drive that armored truck into the local police precinct.”

“Narco-terrorism,” the consular officer said. “It’s dastardly. We all focus on the big enemies. The psychos like Saddam Hussein who are probably too busy screwing camels halfway around the world to really send little love packages our way. And, the drug crews come right out and try to scare our cops into submission. They’re taking this to the next level, on all the fronts.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you, Luke,” Director Stewart said. “I’m expanding the DEA training assistance program in Panama, to prepare the local police and _Gardia Civil_ to help take on these drug cartel bastards where they live. I wonder if we can get some real experts down there.”

“You mean military, Carl?” Luke asked. “We’ve all but pulled out of the Colombian support programs due to the threats against all Americans in that country. As much as the thought is sickening, our military is retreating.”

“This narco-terrorism has got to end!” Director Stewart said angrily. “I need better help for the Panama program!”

“I might not be able to dance the Washington Two-Step to get you something,” Luke said. “But I have friends in the naval component of SOUTHCOM. There are SEAL personnel at Rodman that we can “borrow” for some training help. Plus, my oldest son could pull some strings to get you a few of his old people and keep them off the lawmakers' radar. Top notch special operators, if you need ‘em.”

“I knew that I could count on your help, Luke,” Stewart said, reaching across his desk to offer a handshake of thanks.

Lukas Bryant Abernathy III, one of the heads of South American Affairs for the Department of State, returned the handshake. “My son, Clayton, is in the Pentagon somewhere. I’ll arrange a meeting.”

***

###  _Joint Special Operations Coordination Center (JSOCC)_  
 _The Pentagon, Alexandria, Virginia_  
 _0900 hours, local time, 23 September 2000_

The first shift’s watch officer tuned Major General Clayton Abernathy’s small television to CNN and dropped off a short stack of newspapers that included notable titles like _The New York Times_ , _Washington Post_ and _Stars and Stripes_. The young Army lieutenant looked around, wondering where the general might be ten minutes after his usual arrival time, but didn’t question it. All of the brass ran on their own schedules, often attending meetings well before their office hours or long into the night, despite the routines that they try to set for themselves.

A smile crossed the watch officer’s face when Petty Officer 2nd Class (Yeoman) Mara Delgado, the general’s principal assistant, entered the office’s anteroom, her arms piled high with folders and trying to balance her morning cup of coffee along with her burden. He moved quickly to lend a hand, steadying the Petty Officer’s load and offering to take the folders to her desk.

“Why thank you, sir,” Mara said softly, giving the watch officer her usual disarming smile as she relinquished her load.

“Not a problem, Petty Officer Delgado. You’re always quick to help me too, so it’s only fair to return the favor.”

The watch officer knew Mara was married and that he really had no chance with the striking, raven-haired beauty. But when she cast her gentle glances or a friendly wink at him, it was enough to make his chest flutter just a little bit. He never dared make an improper advance though. Nobody knew where her Navy SEAL husband might be lurking.

Mara Delgado was once a promising American naval petty officer, who had taken a wrong turn in her life and become a Cobra Eel, the terrorist organization's equivalent of a naval commando. A team of G. I. Joe operatives in the South Pacific had rescued her, after a horrific battery of genetic and surgical experiments were conducted on her to develop underwater “super soldiers”.

After Mara’s rescue, and a subsequent bout of severe emotional depression at being unable to live alongside the man she had fallen in love with, Chief Petty Officer Hector “Shipwreck” Delgado, she accepted the offer of a marine research laboratory in Seattle. She had struck a deal with the scientists to live there and help them understand the bio-mechanics of how aquatic animals breathed underwater and the extent of Cobra’s research in bio-engineering that had manipulated Mara’s physiology.

The scientists grew to sympathize with Mara’s plight, and recruited the best gene therapists in the world, along with the world’s most competent re-constructive surgeons at the Bern Institute of Corrective Surgery in Switzerland. Among the group of luminaries, they were able to reverse Cobra’s changes to Mara, but not without significant dangers. Mara accepted all the risks, because she had finally been given a ray of hope to return to the world everyone else occupied.

When she emerged from the recovery room after her final procedure, the man she had fallen in love with was right there at her side, waiting to see her. Shipwreck had never forgotten about her, as he had promised. They got married soon after, and when the Joe Team disbanded in 1995, General Hawk had pulled strings to get her re-enlisted in the Navy and a security clearance high enough to allow her to work with him at his new post in the Pentagon. She had worked loyally for the general ever since.

The watch officer and Mara both stood at attention when they heard the hallway door open and close, as Major General Abernathy walked in, apparently haggard from an early morning meeting elsewhere in the building.

“Good morning, General,” the watch officer said in greeting, snapping a sharp salute as Abernathy walked by. The general silently nodded in acknowledgment.

Mara stayed quiet, instantly assessing Abernathy’s mood, and returned to her chair after the general’s inner office door was shut. “He’s having a helluva morning already, sir. Do you have any important information for him? I’ll pass your reports on when I bring in the critical dispatches, priority messages and coffee.”

“Don’t we have to just go in and report?” the watch officer asked. “Not that there was any overnight flash traffic or anything. The graveyard shift had a slow day at the office.”

“I can read the general pretty well,” Mara said. “He’s not going to be in the mood for anything but a national security crisis right now. Let’s allow him to get settled into his day. I’ll call you in the communications center if he wants you to report in person.”

“Thanks, Petty Officer,” the watch officer said with a smile and wave. He left the main office, bound for the JSOCC Communications Watch Center, about three corridors away.

Not long after the office’s other permanent employees arrived, the general morning buzz quieted down, and a number of messengers came and left with daily mail to cross Mara’s desk, her intercom buzzer rang. Ready with a steaming cup of coffee and General Abernathy’s favorite condiments, Mara gathered up a handful of pink message forms and knocked on his inner office door.

“Come on in, Mara,” General Abernathy said, casting a smile of greeting when his assistant entered.

“Your messages and a cup of coffee, sir,” Mara said, setting his things on the desk blotter. “Did you have a rough morning? Want me to order up a couple of muffins and a bowl of fruit from the building commissary?”

“I think that’s a great idea, Mara,” Abernathy said. He accepted the stack of messages and glanced through them. “Anything odd on my schedule today?”

“You’ve got an unusually light day, sir,” Mara replied. “Just a briefing with the Joint Chiefs at seventeen hundred hours, and your weekly meeting with the Jugglers at twenty hundred hours. Your whole day is free otherwise. Lieutenant Smith said there was no flash traffic out of the message center during the overnight watch.”

Abernathy stopped scanning his messages when he noticed that his father Lukas had called at a rather early hour. “Mara, you know anything about this call from my dad?”

“No, sir. He called personally and spoke to the overnight operator in the message center. Shall I get him on your line?”

Abernathy read the message over quickly. His father usually never called himself unless it was family business or he wanted something outside of official channels. The content of the message was an old family code phrase that Lukas had taught his sons to use in an emergency.

“No, thank you, Mara. Just call the motor pool and tell the mechanics not to start working on my car. I’ll need it ready to go right away. And, keep the hounds off my back, okay? I need to stop by my father’s office over at State, and I don’t want anyone sniffing around my business for a couple hours.”

“Something the matter with your father, sir?” Mara asked. “Would you like me to call ahead, or take care of anything else?”

“Just keep my office running until I get back. Like I said, I don’t want any Jugglers or their assistants sniffing around for a while. Hopefully this message from my dad is nothing, but it could be important.”

“You got it, sir,” Mara said, reaching for the doorknob. “I’ll cover for you.”

***

###  _A hacienda in the Medellin foothills_  
 _Colombia_  
 _0715 hours, local time_

The rising morning sun lit the rolling lowlands around Medellin with an orange hue, casting arcs of color and shadow across the countryside. Lush green pastures and open grasslands with scattered trees formed an idyllic backdrop for the wealthy and affluent among the Medellin locals. Their bright white, yellow and beige _haciendas_ dotted the up-slopes of the foothills and were connected by simple dirt traces to preserve as much of the natural environment as possible.

One such _hacienda_ , a multi-level, palatial structure all in white stucco, rose out of a hillside. Surrounded by greenery, the main house also had a number of outbuildings and an attached barracks-like building for housing estate workers or guards. Both workers and guards did not exist in short supply around the _hacienda_ ; a full staff of caretakers and house staff cared for the property and its residents. Additionally, tough security men dressed in black battle dress utilities or tropical weight button-down shirts and khaki slacks constantly patrolled the grounds with AK-74 assault rifles or compact 9mm sub-machineguns.

Yellow-orange light shined into the _hacienda’s_ inner rooms through a wide variety of open-air windows, protected from the elements by hand-hewn wooden shutters and the broad overhang of the _hacienda’s_ roof. The exquisite home was typical of the plantation-like regal estates of the area, but still very personalized to its owner, at great cost.

That owner, Tomas Arriscaldo, stirred himself awake at the sensation of the soft morning breeze blowing into his master suite windows, pushing aside the thin white curtains which were hung to make the airy bedroom more private. A small beagle, the favorite pet of his youngest daughter, yipped and scampered happily around the bed, eventually licking his master’s face when he saw the man waking.

Tomas Arriscaldo was a self-made man, starting out as a knuckle-dragging street thug in the streets of Medellin, and working for some of the first drug lords in the cartel during his teens. As it was for many in his line of work, the drive to make a living and help feed his family steered him into the lucrative drug business more than the romantic sense of becoming a powerful criminal.

Economics being what they were in that part of South America, not many jobs paid as well as being in cahoots with the drug lords. But Arriscaldo found himself a lot better at the trade than his contemporaries, rising quickly through the ranks of the cartel, and soon finding himself at the top of the heap working one of the most lucrative illegal drug markets in the world – the United States/Canada distribution operation.

It was Arriscaldo’s idea to initiate the attacks on American metropolitan law enforcement agencies in retaliation for the massive drug busts that threatened to cut off his livelihood and distribution network in the United States. But the ongoing drug-related violence was thousands of miles away from his morning routine, and he preferred to keep it that way.

Arriscaldo slipped from between the sheets of his bed without stirring his wife, who happily slept off the previous night of lovemaking with a contented grin on her smooth-featured Latina face. With the beagle loyally trotting on his heels, the wealthy drug kingpin headed for an intercom panel on the wall next to the bedroom door and pressed a buzzer button on the device.

“Good morning, _patron_ ,” replied the voice of Arriscaldo’s major-domo, the underling in charge of all the laborers and caretakers in his _hacienda_. “Shall I send someone up with your usual breakfast?”

“No, Ramon. I shall take my meal in the office on the main floor. I do not wish to disturb Esmeralda’s sleep.”

“Very well, _patron_. Do you need anything else from me?”

“Yes, Ramon. Advise the security men at the gate and the inner perimeter that I am expecting a visitor. Allow him to come right up to the _hacienda_. You bring him to my office personally upon his arrival and see to any of his needs. We have important business to discuss.”

“ _Si, mi patron_. I shall see to him.”

Arriscaldo selected for himself a set of matching lightweight, white linen jacket and trousers, and wore an open silk shirt, allowing his muscular, olive-skinned chest to show. He made his way into the plush office just off the _hacienda’s_ main entrance and drew up the Venetian blinds to allow more sunlight to shine on his carved wood desk.

A tray of his favorite breakfast foods and pastries was already waiting on a side table, along with a number of local and international newspapers neatly folded and within reach. Arriscaldo leaned back in his chair and sampled the fresh pastries and slices of fruit on the tray, turning on a wide-screen television mounted to the back wall across from where he sat.

Just as he tuned into the CNN morning news stream on his satellite television receiver, a knock sounded at his office door.

“ _Si!_ ” the drug kingpin called out. “Come in!”

Ramon, the major-domo, pushed the heavy, twin wooden doors open and walked softly across the floor to stand before his employer. “ _Patron_ ,” he said with a slight bow, “please allow me to present _Señor_ James McCullen Destro.”

Arriscaldo stood to greet his visitor as Ramon stepped to one side with an unnecessary flourish. James McCullen Destro stepped into the plush office, reaching out a hand to shake his host’s. Despite the hot weather, Destro kept his trademark silver steel mask securely attached to his head, covering the features of his true face.

The rest of the Scottish laird was comfortably dressed for the region of the world he was traveling in. A lightweight linen suit jacket was draped over his broad shoulders and muscular arms, with a coordinating pair of trousers and comfortable loafers. He had opted not to wear a dress shirt, allowing his chiseled chest to be covered only with a thin, cotton tee shirt.

“Welcome, Laird Destro,” Arriscaldo said in lightly accented English. “I trust your trip was uneventful?”

The men traded handshakes.

“Quite,” Destro replied curtly, waiting to hear the office doors close behind Ramon. Their business required privacy.

“Would you care for some refreshments?” Arriscaldo asked, showing Destro the tray of finger foods that had been set in the office. “A drink, perhaps?”

“You can drop the pleasantries, Tomas. We have business to discuss, and I am on a very tight time schedule. The less time I spend around here, the better.”

“You needn’t worry about your reputation with law enforcement, _Señor_ ,” Arriscaldo said. “The cartel owns anyone that could possibly finger you. My people have been covering you ever since your Gulfstream landed at the regional airport in Medellin.”

“And what about the American drug police that are watching you, Tomas?” Destro asked. “I would hate for them to make a connection between us.”

“No unwelcome visitors can approach close enough to this _hacienda_ without finding themselves in a very dangerous position. You needn’t feel so worried.”

“Being cautious has kept me in business for a very long time,” Destro said evenly.

“Associating with the world’s most powerful criminal organization – or terrorists if you wish – guarantees your future in business,” Arriscaldo countered. “I have some sources that provided me information about you.”

“Touche,” Destro said, taking a seat across from Arriscaldo. “If you would kindly indulge me. The business proposal, if you please?”

 _Arriscaldo has something of an ego,_ Destro mused, his eyes scanning the fullness of the room in a blink of an eye. While the office wasn’t gaudy by any stretch of the word – it had to be comfortable and tailored to the tastes of its owner – it still had a much different flair than the selfsame office Destro occupied in the dank Scottish castle he considered his base of operations with M.A.R.S.

“As you know,” Arriscaldo began, munching on a pastry and fingering the pieces of fruit on the tray next to his desk. “We are both businessmen, but plying a trade that is frowned upon by many of the world’s nations.”

“Yes, yes,” Destro said, mocking boredom. “Get on with it, will you?”

“I know that you have access to certain – very powerful – weapons systems. Particularly things that can do quite a bit of damage.”

“Sure. What of it?”

“I am planning to damage the American economy in return for their police damaging mine. To do so, I require something powerful. A torpedo, to be precise.”

“The rumors concerning your deviance are true,” Destro said, softly applauding. “You want to cripple the Panama Canal, don’t you? Hurt the world’s busiest shipping routes so that your northbound, overland drug shipments can continue? It’s quite a notion.”

Arriscaldo nodded, an inward smile crossing his lips.

“And, how do you propose to deliver this torpedo? There is much to consider if you wish to cripple the canal.”

“That is for me to know. Can you provide it?”

“Yes,” Destro said, rubbing his chin. “I have some contacts in the Ukraine that just might be able to connect you with the item you desire. But it won’t be cheap, I assure you. That sort of technology is very touchy. I can get it to one of your Atlantic side seaports if you can grease it with the customs people to let the item in undetected.”

Arriscaldo walked over to a filing cabinet, where a combination lock kept the contents safely locked away. With a quick twist of the dial, he opened the top drawer and pulled out a leather satchel.

“Take this,” Arriscaldo said, placing the satchel on the desk in front of Destro, “as a down payment, in good faith for your delivery. I trust ten million American dollars in non-sequential bearer bonds is something your financiers can handle?”

Destro tested the heft of the satchel and inspected the funds certificates inside. “Yes. This should do just fine.”

“Get this straight, _Señor,_ ” Arriscaldo warned. “Despite the powerful friends you have around the world, know that I am not one to be trifled with. You might think of South America as a place where your lowest henchmen can peddle junk AK-47’s to my people, and that we are not worthy of much concern. My friends and I are quite powerful, and we are driven to revenge more than you might think.”

“Are you threatening me?” Destro growled, pushing the satchel across the desk. “If so, then this deal is off.”

“No, _Señor._ I am merely stating facts. But these facts are of little concern so long as the item comes to me, and we transact business honestly.”

“Very well,” Destro said, taking the handles of the satchel and rising to his feet. “I shall contact you with the details of when to expect your shipment.”

“My thanks, _Señor._ It is a pleasure doing business with you.”

***

###  _International Annex Offices, U.S. Department of State_  
 _College Park, Maryland_  
 _1030 hours, local time_

The traffic around the Washington Beltway had been rather light for Major General Abernathy as he circumnavigated the seat of American federal power on his way to visit his father’s office. Situated in a relatively affluent Maryland community that could be considered a suburb of the D.C. metropolitan area, the State Department’s annex was staffed by a bureaucracy of foreign relations experts, assistants and deputies that could no longer be housed in the main complex of offices within Washington’s city limits.

Abernathy’s black, late-model Ford Crown Victoria seemed to fit right into the general population of the employees parked in the annex’s spacious parking lot. Many of the government types that worked in the area tended to like buying nondescript, American-made Fords and Chevrolets for tooling around the city and commuting to and from their homes. As the general scanned the rows of Caprices, Luminas, Tauruses and Crown Victorias parked in the visitor’s lot, he wondered how many of them were performance vehicles, fitted by the government with Police Interceptor packages and the ability to put his factory-standard vehicle to shame on the highways.

Absently, he almost passed an empty parking space, and slammed on the brakes abruptly to stop. A quick reverse followed, and he was finally at his destination. Gathering up his small, leather briefcase, the general walked into the security entrance of the Annex, adjusting his garrison cap on top of his head.

Uniformed guards of the Federal Protective Service instantly moved aside, holding the visitor entrance doors open for Abernathy as he strode up to the reception desk, where he was greeted warmly by the Annex’s executive receptionist through an intercom speaker.

“Good morning, General… Abernathy,” the buxom blonde behind the desk said with a smile and flirtatious bat of her eyelashes. “Welcome to the _International Annex_ , sir. I received a message to expect your arrival. May I please verify your identity?”

General Abernathy pulled out his Pentagon security ID, which had his image and personal information, as well as a very important color code – the one that basically opened all doors to him at the Pentagon. As soon as the receptionist noticed that he was assigned to the JSOCC and had an E-Ring/Level Five clearance, she was convinced. Reaching under her desk to press a buzzer that also unlocked the Plexiglas security door between her desk and the visitor lobby, the blonde waved Abernathy through.

“Go to the first set of elevators and head to the staff receptionist on the fourth floor, General. She will bring you to your father’s office.”

When Abernathy stepped off the elevator, the fourth floor was abuzz with activity. People moved about, chitchatting with one another, in stark contrast to the cold and empty main lobby. For a moment, the general stood outside the elevator doors in his Army greens, surrounded by a sea of moving white Oxford shirts and multicolored neckties, and conservative, gray women’s suits. The people around him parted to give the general a way through, and the staff receptionist waved at Abernathy from her desk.

The receptionist had a visitor’s badge in hand, and clipped it onto the lapel of General Abernathy’s uniform jacket when he approached. She got up from her rolling chair, and gave him a pleasant smile.

“Please follow me, sir,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your father is right this way.”

When the staff receptionist knocked on Lukas Abernathy’s office door, it swung open with no effort. Lukas was already on his feet and walking round his desk, extending his hand to greet his son.

“Thank you, Marjorie,” the _charge d’affaires_ said. He clasped Clayton’s hand in between both of his and shook it vigorously. “You look well, Clay. How are Anna and the kids?”

“Anna’s doing well, Dad,” Clayton replied. “Scott and Jennifer miss their grandpa.”

“You should bring everyone by the new house, son. We’ve finally settled in at the big farm outside Middletown. Just an hour from here, you know.”

“I know, Dad. But if you’ll pardon my saying so, your message made me think you didn’t want to have a social visit.”

“Always the hard charger, Clay,” Lukas said with a chuckle before returning to his chair. “I do need to talk to you.”

“What is it?” Clayton asked. “What’s this cloak and dagger all about?”

“Just because you don’t tell me everything about your exploits around the dinner table anymore, doesn’t mean I don’t know where you work and the nature of what you do.”

“What I _did_ , Dad,” Clayton said. “I’m not in command of the Joes any longer. I just run the Special Ops Coordination Center at the Pentagon.”

“That may be so,” Lukas said, offering his son a cigar from a humidor full of Cubans, which the younger Abernathy declined. “But I know that they’re all out and about, and they are still the best we have for performing – how shall we say – _sensitive_ missions?”

“Yes, Dad,” Clayton replied. “Many of them have chosen to disappear, though. They want their privacy, and a chance to put their lives back together after fighting Cobra for so many years.”

“Well, a friend of mine at the DEA needs to know if you could find some of them. I need some top-shelf operators to help win us some payback.” The _charge d’affaires_ dropped copies of a number of classified DEA files onto his desk.

“Read those. The DEA’s main targets in the Cali and Medellin cartels, working out of Colombia, are poisoning America. And now, they’ve gone to all-out terrorism in order to set the stage for perpetuating their business operations.

“If I recall, your outfit was the only one that really kicked terrorist ass since the eighties. Your people knew the business inside and out, and all the players to boot. Colombia is still a political frenzy internally, and a dangerous place for American intervention. But I have SEAL friends in Panama that are ready to help.”

Clayton’s forehead wrinkled as he read the news transcripts and DEA data. He knew about the attacks in the three American cities, and the news media’s interpretation of the goings-on. Seeing the new intelligence in front of him made the general seethe with anger.

“So why not send them in?” Clayton asked.

“Because everyone in the area knows the SEALs are at the Rodman naval station, training Panamanian police and military for their domestic counter-drug mission. If they were identified over the Colombian border, it would be a mess that would come right back at us in the form of more terrorist actions. No one would know if some ex-Joes were to turn up and slip across the border. Plus, they can be disavowed if anything goes wrong.”

“Yeah, of course, Dad. You want people you can leave high and dry if the shit hits the fan. That’s not my people. I brought all my Joes home.”

“We have a duty, son. The DEA will back anyone you can send. The SEALs will get them in and out. They just need to take the initiative and get whoever ordered these attacks on American soil. The terror war is hot again, Clay. We need the best. And we need to send them in quietly. I know you can do that.”

“You know that I am part of the Jugglers, Dad,” Clayton said. “It’s not very easy to pull the wool over their eyes, and they have their fingers into everything in the armed forces. They could try to undermine this little effort of yours and Director Stewart’s. And who would get hurt? My former colleagues would. I can’t live with that.”

“I know the Jugglers are out to serve their own political goals, Clay,” Lukas said. “And I know how deeply their influence goes inside the Beltway. I also know that you can make this happen without them finding out. You’ve dodged every bullet they’ve sent your way for the last eighteen years. You can do this. I have faith in you, son.”

“Okay,” Clayton replied with a sigh. “I’ll try to get you some of my old people. It’s probably best that I don’t tell you anything more until I’ve scared them up out of hiding and sold them on the idea.”

***

Clayton and Lukas did have a father and son chat for a few minutes before the elder Abernathy sent his son on his way with the DEA files safely stowed in his briefcase. The receptionists gave the general their friendliest smiles as he passed them by, and after a solitary walk back across the parking lot to his car, Clayton was navigating his vehicle towards the Pentagon once more.

Before pulling out of the network of streets around College Park for the Beltway, the general turned on his hands free cellular phone and dialed several sequences of numbers, coded access numbers to the private line in his office at the JSOCC. All the while, his mind was on old memories, and old friends.

“JSOCC Commander’s Office, this is Yeoman Delgado,” Mara said, answering the ringing telephone extension on her desk.

“This is Abernathy. Go secure.”

Mara switched the line over to her STU-20 telephone scrambler and changed handsets. “You’re secure, General. What can I do for you?”

“I’m coming back to the Pentagon. I need you to start looking for a way to get me out to Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. I’ll need forty-eight hours, maximum. Officially or unofficially, I need to get out there as soon as humanly possible.”

Mara fell silent for a moment. “I can get you out to Provo via Chicago from Dulles on a commercial flight. Shall I set it up under your cover identity?”

“Please do, Mara,” Abernathy replied. “Have the Jugglers been sniffing around?”

“No. I haven’t seen anyone but your staff around. Is something wrong, sir? Some sort of emergency?”

“Not yet, Mara,” General Abernathy said. “But I do need to look up a few old friends. And I have to leave Washington without getting on the Jugglers’ radar. See what you can do for me, okay?”

“Yes sir. I’ll start right away and get it all set up. See you when you get back to the office, sir.”

***

_Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah_   
_24 September, 2000_

Out in the open wilderness of Utah, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing, was one of the largest U.S. government facilities in terms of square acreage. Dugway was sprinkled with all manner of eclectic buildings, from simple wooden shacks to house test equipment, to steel-reinforced cement control bunkers, and expanses of open firing ranges for some of America’s most secret, non-nuclear “wonder weapons”.

However, the facility was slowly but surely being drawn back to face the chopping block of the congressional Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The only saving grace was the need to safeguard a number of chemical and biological weapons research programs that needed the isolation until the Rocky Mountain Chemical Weapons Arsenal could be returned to active duty after being damaged during a Cobra plot to steal some of the arsenal's toxic contents.

In a tiny fenced complex, just a few hundred meters off the main access road to the center of the proving grounds, and facing Utah state highway 196, three small metal Quonset huts sat in a neat row. The fences were festooned with warning signs and the ubiquitous white “United States Government Property” placards.

Vehicles passed along the access road fairly frequently, going right past the three Quonset huts without so much as a nod from the drivers. However, one blue civilian car, a rented Dodge Stratus from the regional airport in Provo, pulled to a stop in front of the locked entrance gate. The single, male occupant fished a small metal key from his pocket before stepping out of the car and walking right to the compound’s lock.

Without missing a beat, Major General Clayton Abernathy unlocked the gate to the last headquarters of the G. I. Joe Team. Nicknamed Pit III, it was the final resting place of the long-suffering elite combat unit.

The gate swung open with a rusty squeak. Dust devils swirled across the open path to the thinly paved parking area in front of the Quonset huts. Abernathy covered the distance quickly in his sedan, his mind reaching back into time, to see the friends and colleagues that once worked at Pit III under his command.

Selecting the second Quonset hut, the general walked right inside, finding the hand-made Indian horse blanket that Charlie "Spirit" Iron-Knife often sat on while serving his lonely vigil over the Pit’s personnel entrance. He folded the blanket aside and thought back to remember the override code, which unlocked the touch pad latching system that the blanket concealed.

Abernathy punched in the sixteen-digit security code that he alone knew. While he waited for the touch pad to accept the numbers, he checked the batteries in the Mag Lite flashlight he carried. Just in case the power systems below decks took a while to come back to life, the flashlight would come in handy.

The locking bolts under the heavy steel door slid back slowly, and a hiss escaped from the unsealed entry. The stench of musty, trapped air began to escape while the door slid aside, allowing Abernathy access to the steps that led down into the Pit.

The general walked the path alone, descending into the depths of the old base. It was certainly the most sophisticated of the Pit series of subterranean command centers. The third PIT was laden with security measures, both obvious and not so obvious, all developed from lessons learned during Cobra's campaigns to infiltrate and destroy the previous two headquarters. Both of the former headquarters complexes had been built under Fort Wadsworth, New York, quite literally below the foundations of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Abernathy's dress shoes made a leathery clop-clop-clop as he descended the stairs into the lonely, empty corridors of Pit III. Inert gas hallway lights flickered on one by one, as the emergency generator warmed up after so many years of lying dormant. The base was built with quality and reliability in mind. Even after five years of inactivity, the hidden headquarters showed little sign of disuse, other than some settling dust.

The information systems room was just off a main hallway, near the old command and operations center, a few doors down from the austere office that had been set aside for the general. Most of the desks and chairs were gone, along with the terminal workstations that weren't bolted down or against the walls of the room that housed the Joes' massive Cray supercomputer.

General Abernathy located one of the surviving terminals and powered it up. The screen glowed in a soft green before the video kicked in, providing him with a standard multi-colored Microsoft Windows access screen. After gaining entry into the system, he called up the classified information store and personnel rosters. Then he instructed the supercomputer to network into the global defense grid and survey his old unit's military personnel records for candidates who were still on active duty or who could be pressed back into service quickly. Using one of Mainframe's custom-written operations planning tools, all he had to do was enter some search parameters and select the target records, and the Cray did the rest.

Settling down to munch on a Power Bar and take a drag from the bottle of spring water in his overcoat's pocket, the general sat against a bare wall, expecting a long haul, while the Cray processed his request. About halfway through the protein bar, the terminal beeped that the query was complete. Clayton hoisted himself to his feet, glancing around for some paper to feed one of the printer units, and found nothing. The Joes had been thorough in cleaning out the room for its mothballing.

Always ready with a Plan B, the general loaded a diskette into the terminal, and downloaded the results of the computer query. After he shut everything back down and left the Pit to lie as cold as a tomb once more, he would review the data on his laptop during the flight back to Washington.


	2. Placeholder - Flint Chapter (Iraklion, Crete)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incomplete

***

 _Somewhere near Iraklion International Airport, Crete_  
2200 hours, local time  
27 September, 2000

The briefing room was dark, with the only light coming from special low-intensity bulbs that cast indirect illumination across the floor in an eerie blue glow. A dull vibration echoed through the small space, where six black-garbed men occupied themselves.

They silently checked and rechecked their personal weapons, toyed with their razor sharp combat knives, or used their fingers to smear streaks of black camouflage paint across their light colored features. All of them had intense looks on their faces, deep in their own thoughts and disciplined enough not to be chattering needlessly among one another.

At the head of the room, the single entry door opened and a tall, burly man stepped in. As soon as he entered the space, a small projection screen dropped in front of the door and a ceiling-mounted projector hummed while it warmed up.

The last man to arrive flipped open the screen to a laptop computer and fiddled with the keys. When he was finished, four grainy images of varying quality appeared on the screen.

Stepping into the projector’s light, Chief Warrant Officer Dashiell R. Fairborne adjusted the fit of his black beret and looked over the faces of the other six men, who were trainees with the 1st SFOD-D “Delta Force”. Specifically, the trainees were from Delta’s counter-terrorist assault unit, where all the top operators in the detachment worked. They had been under the tutelage of CWO-5 Fairborne on and off over several months, learning how new technologies were being used to minimize civilian casualties in combat assault situations.

CWO-5 Fairborne was considered to be one of Delta’s favorite instructors, especially because of his experience as a unit leader with the G. I. Joe Team. Better known to other Joes as “Flint”, Fairborne had opted to stay with the Army when the team broke up in 1995, and was especially fond of the Special Operations community.

“Okay, people, you’ve been waiting and working hard for this day,” Fairborne began. “I’m sorry we had to pack up from our training so quickly and jump right into a hot mission, but I’ve got a confession to make. I was pretty convinced that you all made the grade a long time ago.

“These four individuals, and potentially a number of unknown accomplices, have taken a Turkish Airways flight outbound to London from here. Our best available intelligence from the Cypriot government authorities has identified them as possible Greek Cypriot radicals. As you know, the political situation between Greece and Turkey has always been strained due to Crete’s divided population, and their divided loyalties.

“Neither the Greek Special Forces nor the Turkish Air Force Commandos were able to mobilize in time to respond to the crisis, so that’s why we got plucked from our field training in Italy. A Cypriot police hostage negotiator has convinced the hijackers by radio to return the plane to Iraklion while they get their authorities involved in negotiating the release of the airliner’s crew and passengers.”

“What kind of time hack do we have to prepare?” Lieutenant Hawkins, the team leader, asked.

“Not much, Lieutenant,” Fairborne replied. “As fast as we had mobilized to respond to the situation, it unfolded quickly. The plane was almost midway across the Mediterranean when the hijackers were talked into turning around. The guys on the ground will have a diagram of the aircraft and blueprints for us to plan from, along with a passenger manifest.

“Hopefully, they’ll brief us on how the negotiations are going, and we can tell them what we want in terms of an opening to set up our assault. Most of the available authorities in Crete are in agreement that an assault on the plane is inevitable, considering the profiles of the radicals known to be aboard. One of them is a bomb maker, and two came up on numerous international terrorist databases, including ours.

“Listen up, all of you,” Fairborne added. “I know you were all top-notch operators going into this. Hell, if you were in my old outfit, there would be no doubt about your ability to kick ass and take names. But every situation can’t be fully planned for, and every possibility can’t be predicted. So, let’s all be careful, and let’s all come home alive. And, by the way, let’s bring the civilians home alive too, okay?”

The Delta operators nodded at the grim joke, some of the men cracking little smiles or allowing themselves a chuckle.

A flashing red light got Fairborne’s attention. “Okay, people, brace yourselves. It’s almost battle time.”

The entire briefing room shook and rattled, as the MC-141B Starlifter that was transporting the mobile Delta command center touched down on the main runway at Iraklion. Flashing lights and sirens welcomed the Air Force transport, as crash rescue equipment and follow-me vehicles from the airport waited for the hijacked airliner to clear final.

After a few minutes of taxiing, the rear wall of the briefing room folded down like a ramp, to reveal the bright lights of the old Greek Air Force fighter detachment’s alert hangars, on the very fringe of the Iraklion field.

“Okay, boys, let’s do it,” Fairborne whispered.

***

 _Meanwhile, in Boston, Massachusetts…_  
1600 hours, local time  
(six hours behind Crete)

The tall row house in the Dedham section of the city’s suburbs seemed cold and lonely, but even more so than usual, for one half of the house’s occupants.

Despite it being the middle of the afternoon, the rooms were lonely nonetheless for Alison R. (Hart-Burnett) Fairborne, formerly the G. I. Joe operative code named “Lady Jaye”. She was used to crossing paths with her husband, as he was coming home from his usual job at the Natick Soldier Systems Center, in nearby Natick, Massachusetts.

However, because he was prized by the Special Operations Command for his operational experience, Dashiell often took long business trips to Fort Bragg or Europe to work with deployed units, training them in combat tactics or the new weapons and personal tactical gear that Natick had under development.

Despite being tempted to take a military position after the Joes herself, Alison chose to go civilian and enjoy her wedded life with Dashiell. Her father, a local corporate executive in Boston, had pulled some strings to get her into his firm as a senior payroll analyst and a more-than-decent annual salary for the position.

Alison was quite motivated to settle down from the hectic life of fighting Cobra, and when a local theatre company had offered her a starring role in their ensemble’s production of the musical “Chicago”, she was also hooked on returning to her actress aspirations.

CNN was on the television in the Fairbornes’ austere “convenience” kitchen, and Alison was glued to the news stream, which was just releasing the first reports of the hijacked aircraft in Crete. She knew that Dashiell was working with a training team in Italy, and if she knew her husband at all, her old Flint would be trying to get into the action, hero type that he was.

The streaming headline text that ran across the screen, just below the news announcer’s picture flashed a brief note – “Turkish Airliner Hijacked: American Soldiers Allegedly Sent From Italy To Assist”. It caught Alison’s eye, and she sighed. Flint was up to his eyebrows in trouble again.

***

 _Central Administration Building_  
Iraklion International Airport, Crete  
2215 hours, local time

The conference room had been left dark, except for some small reading lamps in the center of the large meeting table which illuminated the strewn papers and unrolled blueprint sheets with a yellowish glow. The Delta members wanted the room dark to preserve their night vision, while they planned the rescue operation.

“The airliner has been cleared to land,” the airport’s senior administrator reported in nearly perfect English, after hanging up his cellular phone. The Greek Cypriot watched the blackened faces of the six Delta operators and their instructor as they pored over the blueprints. “We’ll escort it to a holding taxiway some distance from the buildings and hangars, and our policemen and militia have been instructed to set a safe perimeter around the aircraft. I will be negotiating with the hijackers until the government representatives arrive.”

“Very well,” Lieutenant Hawkins whispered. “We need to get out to the parking ramp and have a look at the plane.”

“But you will be unable to get too close to the Airbus,” the administrator protested. “They might kill some of the hostages if they see anyone approach.”

“We have a few tricks up our sleeve, as well as a lot of blind spots we can take advantage of when we need them,” Fairborne said. “All you have to do is keep them talking and don’t let them get back into the air. We’ll keep our ears open and help you. Just stay calm and act like you have no choice but to take their side.”

“I understand,” the administrator said. “I’ll have one of the crash rescue trucks waiting outside to carry you to the perimeter.”

After the administrator left, the men questioned Fairborne about the best approach to assaulting the plane with so few operators. The Chief Warrant Officer silenced the men with a wave.

“We’ve got a number of advantages at this point, based on what we know, gentlemen. First off, if there are four hostage takers, one will be in the cockpit to control the flight crew, and the rest will have probably corralled all of the passengers into an area where they can be kept from overpowering the group and retaking the cockpit or escaping the plane.

“They would likely have stacked the passengers in one another’s laps and in the aisles, in the rear of the plane, which is here, in the economy section aft of the amidships bulkhead and behind the wing. That would put six of the eight exits out of the hostages’ reach. The gunmen would be able to shoot anyone who went for the aft doors or tried to engage the slides, and it would be a bloodbath if the people had to climb over one another to use them.

“If we penetrate from the center of the aircraft, we can move up through the cargo hold and into the passenger compartment access panels. Or, we can infiltrate by blowing out the over wing exits with frame charges. We can catch the hijackers in the rear cabin with their backs to us, while one man can punch right through the cockpit glass and take out whoever’s minding the flight crew.”

“But through-and-through bullet wounds could hit innocents,” Sergeant 1st Class Parker, one of the enlisted Delta trainees observed.

“We’ve been through the hostage drills, Parker,” Hawkins said. “We’ll draw the special squash head rounds that the air marshals use, and go for center-of-mass chest shots. Hit them in the neck or limbs if they have body armor, and take advantage of the protection multiple rows of seats between you and them can provide.”

“Remember, guys, this is all doctrine until we see what we’re up against,” Fairborne said. “We need to pack the infrared and Starlite scopes, as well as the new thermal imaging scanner we brought along. Everyone will carry full loads of squash head rounds in the M-4’s and Berettas, and we’ll carry flash-bang and stun gas grenades as further insurance.”

Another of the operators, Staff Sergeant Perillo, glanced out the window of the conference room, which overlooked the expanse of the airport, and chimed in. “The plane’s down, guys. We need to go.”

Fairborne watched the stream of emergency vehicles and armored cars from the Cypriot National Guard rolling out to the holding taxiway, on their way to surround the airliner. “Game faces, gentlemen. Let’s make this look easy.”

***

 _JSOCC, The Pentagon_  
1640 hours, local time

“General Abernathy!” Mara said excitedly, barging into her commanding general’s office. “General!”

“Calm down, Mara,” Abernathy said, hanging up his office telephone. “What’s wrong?”

“I have flash traffic from European Command! They dispatched a Delta Force team from training in Vicenza, Italy to Iraklion Airport in Crete. It’s about the Turkish Air hijacking that just hit the world news feeds!”

“Okay, Mara. Get me the latest SITREP from European Command and I’ll brief the higher ups.”

“All I have so far is the manpower report,” Mara replied. “They deployed too quickly for a SITREP and they haven’t checked in at Iraklion. We’re trying to get in touch with the airport administrator for a situation update. You should see whose name is on the list, though.”

General Abernathy reviewed the list of seven names on the Delta team roster and smiled. “Old Flint is up to his neck in trouble again.”

***

 _Iraklion International Airport_  
Holding Taxiway Charlie-3  
2252 hours, local time

“Turkish Airlines Three-three-two Heavy, this is Iraklion ground control. Hold short on Taxiway Charlie-three. All other aircraft have been instructed to give way. The airport administrator will rendezvous with you when you’re stopped.”

Crouched on top of a bright yellow crash rescue fire truck, two of Fairborne’s Delta trainees scoped the airliner with a recently fielded test unit from Natick – a powerful man-portable thermal scanner and mapping software linked to the scanner on a rugged laptop computer.

The mapping software had been set up with digitized blueprints and seating charts of the specific French Airbus model the hijackers were holding, and the processor tried to draw a three-dimensional picture of the heat sources and their movements as undulating, multicolored shapes on the map overlay. With two additional stations scanning the plane from other angles, manned by the remaining two pairs of Delta operators, the thermal detection units wirelessly coordinated their feeds so the laptop essentially triangulated each person’s position aboard the plane.

“Crank that sucker to the max, Sergeant Saperstein,” Lieutenant Hawkins instructed, peering through a NOD attached to a leather head strap. “Looks like there are a lot of people jammed together in the aft cabins, just as the Chief predicted, but it also looks like the hijackers have a bunch of people moving around. And, I can’t see a whole lot of weapons, even through the open window shades. We need to localize and plot the real bad guys among them.”

“Hard to tell which of the walkers in the main cabin are bad guys,” Saperstein observed. “Even with the thermals, no one is registering significantly different from the rest. Good news is the scanner isn’t picking up anyone wearing electronic bomb components or a transmitter. It’s calibrated to pick that sort of stuff out too.”

The Delta operators’ radio ear pieces buzzed, as a signal from CW-5 Fairborne came in from his position among the perimeter security forces. “This is Dogface Five to all elements. If you can’t get a read on the thermals, try spiking the plane for sound with the laser. See if you can pick them out by voice. I’m gonna try to get the airport director to agree to our standard takedown plan. But I need a rough count and positions for the hijackers.”

“Roger, Dogface Five,” Hawkins replied, setting up a laser emitter and parabolic receiver for the “sound spike” device. “We’re trying to get a solid fix on the tangos’ actual positions. There’s a lot of activity on board right now. Check you in five.”

***

 _Backstage at the_ Opera House _Theatre_  
Washington Street, Boston  
1710 hours, local time

Alison Fairborne cleared her throat and began to softly sing the notes of a vocal exercise while a stage assistant helped her arrange the variety of costumes for her role as Roxie Hart in the Opera House Company’s production of “Chicago”.

The weeks of rehearsal had gotten her prepared to take to the stage, but as she touched up her makeup and made sure her singing voice was ready to go, Alison couldn’t help but think of her Dashiell, out on the runway in Crete risking his life.

A small transistor radio tuned to one of Boston’s FM news stations received updates from the AP international news wire, while the station’s evening anchorman read off reports from Iraklion as they were received in the studio.

_“It is a few minutes after eleven p.m. at Iraklion International Airport in Crete, where an airliner hijack situation has been unfolding. The Turkish Airlines Airbus with almost two hundred aboard was enroute to London when it broadcast an emergency code to the Air Traffic Control center in southern Italy. Cypriot authorities in contact with the airliner convinced the hostage takers to turn the plane around and allow negotiations to begin._

_“The pool reporters on the ground have advised our wire services that the hijacked airliner is on the tarmac now, having returned to Iraklion thanks to the efforts of the airport administrator, Stavkos Amadir, and a local police negotiator._

_“No suspect names have been released at this time by the authorities. The group of hijackers on board the aircraft transmitted some demands, but they have not yet been released to the press. So far, there have also been no outside claims from known terrorist groups, taking credit for the hijacking._

_“Turkish and Greek authorities on Cyprus have already released statements that they do not intend to meet the hijackers’ demands. The Turkish Cypriots are being especially vocal about how no organized part of their governing body is responsible for the act. Both sides have used the opportunity to proclaim their usual rhetoric, further inflaming the already tense political situation._

_“Confidence is high among the local Sky News, CNN, AP and UPI staff on Cyprus that an American response team is working with the airport security personnel and Cypriot National Guard to evaluate the situation and that someone is planning for a takedown of the aircraft, should the need arise. A number of reporters spotted a jet transport of the U.S. Air Force taxiing to a secure hangar before the hijacked aircraft was cleared to land._

_“At this time, everyone is settling in for a standoff and the official list of demands from the people on board the airliner. If there are any updates on who is aboard, or the planned response from the security forces on the airfield, you can be sure to hear them first on this channel. My name is William Simkins, and you’re listening to Boston Global News Radio on ninety-six point nine.”_

“Is everything okay, Alison?” the stage assistant asked, motioning for the costume master to quick stitch a small tear in the folds of one of Alison’s costume dresses for the second act. “You’ve been listening to that transistor radio ever since you got in for warm ups. You sure you want to do Roxie when the curtain goes up? I can call the understudy…”

Alison stared at her reflection in a small mirror and dabbed at a spot on her cheek with a makeup brush to touch up a smudge. “No need to call for Janelle, Anne. I’m ready to go on stage. I’m just worried about my husband. I think the people he went to Europe to train are down in Crete with the hijacked plane.”

“You can’t be sure of that, can you?” Anne asked. “I thought your husband worked R&D out at Natick.”

“He does, but the stuff they develop goes out in the field with him for testing.” Alison wanted to stifle a sniff from her nose as she choked up for a second. “The dumb bastard would jump at the chance to be a part of this hijack situation.”

“Why?” Anne asked. “Was he some sort of super soldier before?”

Alison hesitated a moment at the question. “Yeah, you could say that. He still fancies himself as one.”

“He’ll be alright, Alison,” Anne said, trying to reassure the performer as a stage director’s hand signals caught her eye. “Come on, Roxie, your stage call is up. Time to make your magic.”

***

 _Iraklion International Airport_  
Holding Taxiway Charlie-3

“Well, Mister Amadir, we’ve identified eight hijackers in total with our scanning equipment,” Lieutenant Hawkins and CWO-5 Fairborne reported to the airport administrator. “They had a handful of passengers or flight attendants moving around the aircraft once the plane had come to a stop, but most of them were contained in the economy coach section, aft of the number three bulkhead. As you can see in this diagram, the passengers cannot exit out of the tail cone of the Airbus, since it was not a design feature on this model. Also, the emergency exit windows are over the wings. These armed hijackers are guarding the closest doors for the passengers to escape from.”

“Two hijackers are in the cockpit,” Fairborne added, “but until they make radio contact with you again, we won’t be able to identify the speaker. Most of our profiling studies have the leader doing the negotiating for the group of hostage takers. Have they contacted you with any demands yet?”

Stavkos Amadir shook his head. “Nothing so far. No demands, and no contact.”

“Have all the precautions been taken?” Hawkins asked. “Is the airport now isolated?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Amadir replied. “The press is confined to the terminal as you requested, and my spokesman has released nothing. Some of the reporters have been asking about your transport plane, and I was about to concoct a story about an emergency landing to cover you. The radio reports already suspect that your team is here.”

“Good,” Fairborne replied. “Keep the press from seeing the situation directly. Go ahead and toss that bone to them about the crew having engine trouble and being parked at the old fighter base for security reasons. Don’t respond to any direct questions about an American team, but emphasize that your own available security forces have the hostage situation contained for now.”

“I have also closed the airport, Chief Fairborne,” Amadir added. “The Air Traffic Control office is diverting all inbound flights to alternate airports or ordering them delayed on the ground at their origination cities. There’s only one flight we cannot divert.”

“Tell me about that flight,” Fairborne said.

Before Amadir could continue, a radio ground controller in the room with the men spoke up. “Mister Amadir! We are receiving a call from Turkish Three-three-two Heavy!’

“Put it on the overhead speakers and pass me a headset,” Amadir ordered. “The other flight will have to wait a moment, Chief Fairborne.”

***

“This is the voice of the Cypriot Independence Alliance,” the voice on the radio said slowly, after the communications room acknowledged the radio call. “I am now going to list our demands and our terms. Please have your airport administrator on the line.”

“This is Mister Amadir, the administrator,” Amadir said into his headset. “We still await the government negotiator. But I have been empowered to accept your terms and pass them to the authorities.”

“Keep him talking as long as possible,” Fairborne whispered to Amadir. He switched to the team radio channel on his walkie-talkie and said quietly, “Dogface Five to team. Commence frequency sweep and get a new SITREP ready.”

Hawkins ran out of the conference room to catch a ride back to the auxiliary taxiway and his teammates. He would transmit the new SITREP once the leader was located and marked on the thermal scanner’s laptop display.

“The Greek and Turkish governments have been squabbling from their capitals over the status of Cypriot citizens for many years,” the hijacker said over the conference room loudspeaker. “However, Cyprus deserves to be free to govern itself. We have chosen to act on behalf of our brothers, and intend to show both governments that we are serious about our bid for independence.

“Our demands are simple. We want Cyprus to be granted independence from both Turkish and Greek control. All non-Cypriot citizens occupying government positions must step down or be expelled from our shores.”

“You people are crazy!” Amadir blurted out. “How do you expect that to happen while you are holding all those hostages? To implement such an action would take days or weeks! Do you intend to hold those people until your demands are actually met?”

“We are determined to succeed in our quest for independence,” the hijacker stated. “If we are granted no guarantees that our demands have been heard, we will blow this plane up and kill everyone on board.”

Fairborne grabbed his ear as a signal came in from one of the pairs of Delta operators watching the airliner. “Dogface Five, this is position three. We have a new electronic emission that spiked while we were tracing your radio caller. Looks like someone set up a remote detonation circuit.”

The chief warrant officer scrawled a note with the new information and shoved it under Amadir’s nose, who glanced at it and nodded. “I understand your position,” Amadir replied. “I will contact the authorities on your behalf.”

“Very well,” the hijacker said. “I will radio again in one hour. If the government has not announced the meeting of our demands, we will kill one passenger per hour and detonate the aircraft after twenty-four hours. The passengers are hungry and thirsty. I will allow a catering vehicle to approach the nose galley door to replenish our supplies.”

“Understood,” Amadir said as the radio clicked off. He turned to Fairborne and a troubled look crossed his face. “What do you think, Chief Fairborne?”

“Starve ‘em,” Fairborne replied. “It will make the hijackers desperate and they will try to radio again to regain control of the situation. I have a battle plan, and the seven men in my outfit will execute it. First, we’re going to try to learn how to stop the bomb we think has been set up inside the plane. When the hijackers demand the catering truck, we’ll be ready. Then, you can send it in.”

“What is your battle plan?” Amadir asked.

“Better that you don’t know,” Fairborne replied. “It’s right out of our classified play book. If I told you, I would have to kill you, and we need you to talk to them.”

“I see,” Amadir said. The men shook hands. “Good luck to your team, Chief Fairborne.”

***

Try as she might, Alison could not get completely into her performance. Sure, she had the songs timed to the second, and knew exactly what marks to hit and when. Her recall of the dialogue and her specific lines was near perfect. But that was all automatic pilot for her. Alison’s emotions were locked on the hijack situation halfway around the world and her husband deep in the thick of it.

When the intermission curtain fell, she hurried off stage to fire up her transistor radio and allowed the offstage costume assistant to strip off her outer garments.

_“… You are listening to Boston Global News Radio, and I am Anne Richards, reporting an update on the Turkish Airways hijacking on Cyprus. A group called the Cypriot Independence Alliance is claiming responsibility for the aircraft hijack, according to local reports. The leader of the hostage takers identified himself as being from that group, although there is very little background information on them._

_“Security, intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies around the world are trying to come up with a profile on this group, which is currently demanding unconditional Cypriot independence, including the ouster and expulsion of all non-Cypriot born government officials. An initial deadline was to be one hour for the authorities to acknowledge compliance with the demands._

_“The hijackers have threatened to kill one hostage per hour after the first hour, and the airport spokesman said that a firm deadline of twenty-four hours was also announced. The spokesman addressing the press pool did not elaborate what the Cypriot Independence Alliance would do after the twenty-four hours is up._

_“The airport spokesman also responded to questioning from the press pool concerning whether an American counter-terrorist force was on hand to rescue the aircraft. At first, the story of the Americans’ presence was a rumor, based on the arrival of an American four-engine jet transport plane before the return of the hijacked aircraft to the airfield._

_“The spokesman denied emphatically that United States servicemen were involved in the unfolding situation, and that the hijacking was outside of American jurisdiction. The C-141B Starlifter transport aircraft was a routine logistical flight operating between U.S. air bases in Italy and Incirlik air base in Turkey, which is jointly operated by the U.S. and Turkish Air Forces._

_“The American transport reportedly developed engine trouble and was not denied landing clearance at Iraklion due to the emergency it had declared. The plane was parked at the old Greek fighter base at the airport for security reasons and to allow U.S. Air Force technicians to arrive and make repairs to the aircraft._

_“All other commercial and military flights have been held at their originating cities or diverted due to the hijacking, which is a standard crisis procedure at most international airports. We are awaiting word from the United Nations, however, concerning a flight carrying representatives and delegates of the U. N. Security Council, due to meet in Cyprus and to conduct a fact-finding mission on the island before moving on to visit the multi-national peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina._

“Their public itinerary put them arriving into Iraklion, but we’ve heard nothing about a change to that plan due to the hostage crisis. We’ll have more updates as we receive them. Until then, you’re listening to Boston Global News Radio.”

Alison was transfixed on the transistor radio and didn’t realize that her cell phone, sitting on the small offstage vanity that was set aside for her makeup adjustments and personal use, began to silently ring. The electric blue flashing of the phone’s digital display finally caught her eye, and she flipped open the cover, too distracted to even check the caller ID that had come up.

“Dash?” Alison said quickly, hoping that her husband was calling in from someplace safe, instead of Cyprus.

“Sorry, Alison, it’s just me.” Mara Delgado’s voice was unmistakable. “I have General Abernathy on the line with me.”

“Hi, Alison,” General Abernathy said. “I was just calling to see if you were okay.”

“I’m in the middle of a performance, sir. Just sitting through intermission,” she replied, “But, thanks for the support.”

“I know that you know where Flint is,” Abernathy added.

“Where else would he be?”

The general chuckled into his handset. “We both know old Flint too well, don’t we?”

“Please don’t patronize me, General,” Alison said, unaware that there was a growl in her tone. “I just want him to come home alive. Did you order him out there, from your office in the Pentagon?”

“No, Alison. I didn’t issue the orders. The EUCOM theater commander authorized it through NATO. I was just as surprised when the alert came through my office. Matter of fact, I was going to call both of you concerning a project I was ordered to work on. I had hoped to draw from your expertise just a bit.”

“I’m so out of the Army, it’s not funny, General,” Alison said. “I’m sorry, sir, but it would take a major war and a whole lot of administrative hoop jumping to get me to put the uniform back on. I can’t speak for my husband, but Dash and I are trying to build a normal life. I’m not going to give that up for just anything… or anyone.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Alison. I know that you and Flint have earned every moment of rest for the time you were with the team. Just call Mara down here in Washington if there’s anything I can do for you. I want to know when Flint comes home too, never mind the project.”

“Okay, sir. Thank you. I have to go back onstage.”

“Keep your chin up, Alison. Flint will be okay.”

***

 


	3. Panama Vacation, Anyone?

***

_Atlanta, Georgia_   
_7 October, 2000_

The suburban Buckhead home of the Hauser family sat in a cleanly designed neighborhood, each postage stamp home a trendy single-family property with a variety of white picket fences and lush green lawns. Stately, mature elm and maple trees stood in neat rows along either side of the street, stretching their branches out to provide an almost continuous shade for the crisply formed sidewalks.

This Saturday morning was shaping up to be like just about any other. Lawn sprinklers clicked on automatically, their mechanical tik-tik-tik-buzz sounds playing almost in tune from one house to the next. Early risers were busy retrieving small, gasoline lawn mowers from their garages, or trotting to the end of their driveways in robes or workout clothes to collect their morning newspaper. The most die-hard of the bunch were already briskly running up and down the idyllic neighborhood lanes.

The Hauser domicile was sturdy and strong, and looked like it would be hard-pressed to succumb to local weather conditions. The home's residents were equally resilient.

Conrad Stephen "Duke" Hauser, a former Master Sergeant in the Army, and later the senior command sergeant major of the G. I. Joe counter-terrorist group, was still employed by the military, ever since the world's premier anti-terrorist force was stood down in Utah during the latter half of 1995.

After the colors were encased for the final time, and the then jobless Joes allowed to choose the newest direction for their careers, military or otherwise, Hauser toyed with the idea of going civilian. Instead, the career top sergeant accepted a position with the Defense Intelligence Agency's Terrorist Threat Assessment branch and increase in pay grade equivalent to a GS-12. Someone had finally talked him into working in the "officer grades" that he resisted joining for so long.

Hauser worked in Panama for a time - four months to be exact - training the few remaining SOUTHCOM soldiers based along the Panama Canal. His course of study was force protection and counter-terror security planning, and he even took a few classified "black op" reconnaissance trips into South America and Colombia, gathering intelligence on drug cartel operations.

During Conrad's time in the Central and South American region, his soon-to-be fiancée, Shana M. "Scarlett" O'Hara, rejoined her family's business. She set about helping her father Patrick, and her four older brothers, run their downtown Atlanta karate dojo. Business was good, especially when the Army was looking for help training the Guard and Reserve soldiers rotating to and from the Persian Gulf.

The dojo was a cash cow that kept everyone in the O'Hara family happy. However, the biggest moment of Conrad and Shana's lives was when Conrad ended his tour in Panama for a DIA analyst's job on Fort MacPherson, and he finally put a wedding ring on Shana's finger. Soon after the wedding, which many former comrades attended, the Hausers settled into a more relaxed pace of life. Their first child, a daughter named Stephanie, was born in 1996, and instantly occupied the lion's share of Conrad and Shana's home time.

The sound of frying bacon in a skillet and soft humming filled the Hauser household as Shana worked her way around the kitchen, preparing breakfast. Her long, red tresses dangled freely below her shoulder blades, held in check with one of Stephanie's ponytail scrunchies.

The kitchen was one of the rooms that she enjoyed the most, having decorated it in pleasing colors and framed photos of Conrad and herself posing with their many G. I. Joe teammates over the years. While tastefully done, the kitchen's decor was overshadowed by the wall-to-wall memories in print that festooned the dark wood walls of the study, where Conrad did most of his work while at home. A television was on in the unoccupied study, tuned to the Cable News Network, and likely left on by a mischievous Stephanie or her kitten, Snowball, a recently-adopted white albino ball of flying fur.

Hearing the soft tones of CNN's Saturday morning news correspondent from down the hallway, Shana hurried into the den to turn off the TV and return to her task of preparing breakfast. On her way back, she could hear the soft creaking of the upstairs hallway's floorboards as Stephanie made her way between her bedroom and the bathroom.

All of a sudden, a dull thud and crash came from the top of the steps. It was followed by the frightened squeal of Snowball, who charged down the stairs in a full-tilt run.

"Snowball!" Stephanie shouted. "Stop chewing on Mommy's flowers!"

Shana located the wayward kitten in a corner of the kitchen and picked up the tiny handful. Calling up the stairs, she asked, "Stephanie, is anything broken?"

"Snowball knocked a picture of Daddy on the floor."

"If the glass is broken, stay away from it. Come down and get Snowball, and put her in your room for a while. It's time to eat breakfast."

Shana stood at the base of the stairs when the thudding footfalls belonging to Stephanie traced the course from her bedroom to the downstairs hall. The energetic four-year old stopped short on the stairs to throw her arms around her mother's neck in a quick embrace.

"Did anything break, Steph?" Shana asked, hugging her pretty daughter in return.

"Nope. One of Daddy's wood picture frames fell over."

Shana reached Snowball, who was trying to purr herself out of trouble, into Stephanie's waiting arms. The kitten curled up instantly, but cast the youngest Hauser a wary look. "Up to your room with her, Steph."

"Okay, Mommy!" There was a renewed round of cat hysterics, and a door slammed shut. "Done, Mommy!"

A place setting was already out on the kitchen table, the TV in the study turned off, and cartoons on a small kitchen television screen ready to go when Stephanie climbed into her booster chair and sniffed at the steaming scrambled eggs on Shana's plate. She eagerly accepted the bowl of Frosted Flakes placed before her and started to dig in.

“I can’t wait for Daddy to come home,” Stephanie noted in between bites. “He promised to take me horseback riding this weekend.”

“Don’t pressure your dad if he’s very tired from this trip, sweetie,” Shana replied, tilting back her coffee cup and deciding that she could use another mug of it on the way to the airport.

“Where did Daddy go?”

“I don’t know, Stephanie. It was one of those work things. Daddy can’t talk about it until it’s all done.”

Stephanie finished off her bowl of cereal and smiled. “All done, Mommy.”

“Are you excited to be going to see your Nana and Poppa?” Shana asked, while she rinsed off Stephanie’s cereal bowl on its way to the dishwasher. “They called from Saint Louis late last night, and can’t wait to see how you’ve grown.”

“Poppa says a lot of bad words, Mommy,” Stephanie observed.

“Just like your dad and Uncle Vince,” Shana added.

“But Daddy doesn’t say them that much.”

“Your daddy is smart,” Shana said with a smile. “He knows I’ll yell at him if he says cuss words around you.”

Mother and daughter shared a giggle, while Stephanie observed how funny the men in their family sounded when they swore. But a glance at a wall clock over the stove ended the breakfast table discussion.

“Let’s get your shoes on,” Shana said. “Time to go to the airport. Make sure you bring your best smile for Daddy.”

A few minutes of fussing later, Shana and Stephanie were motoring toward Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Shana’s sport utility vehicle. They were gone from the house less than five minutes when their telephone rang. When the answering machine took the call, a familiar voice came through.

“Hi, Shana. Hi Conrad. This is Mara Delgado. I hope you two are doing well there in Atlanta. I’m still working for General Hawk at the Pentagon, and he asked me to look you up about something. Can you please call me back? My telephone number is area code two-oh-two…”

***

_The Silent Castle_   
_deep in the Scottish Highlands_

Sheet lightning cracked and thunder rolled through the gray overcast skies that hung above the craggy valley in mountainous northern Scotland, where the Destro family’s expansive holdings of land surrounded the ancestral keep, originally built during the Middle Ages.

The slate gray structure, its outer walls and towers built from hand-hewn granite and local stone in thousand-pound slabs, appeared to be quite literally carved out of the surrounding mountain crags as it dominated the deep valley over which it had been sited. Generations of Lairds Destro invested their time, labor and resources into keeping the castle strong and making it the bastion from which they would oversee their property.

Even though the accommodations inside the Silent Castle have changed over the centuries, the throne room, seat of power for the Destro family, had never been altered from its original state. At one end, a solid stone throne was perched atop a layered dais, waiting for the master of the keep to take his rightful place there. Just below the throne, the current master, James McCullen Destro XVI, chose to place his ornate, carved mahogany, French Louis XIV style armchair and its companion desk. Thick, woven tapestries in bright reds and browns hung from the stone walls to keep the howling valley winds from piercing the room.

Two Iron Grenadiers, mercenaries that worked for Destro’s M.A.R.S. Corporation and served as his personal guard, maintained a standing vigil over the throne room twenty-four hours a day. They protected the room’s obvious assets – centuries old artifacts owned by the Destro clan displayed around the throne room – along with the more secret improvements the last laird in the Destro line had constructed.

The Iron Grenadiers snapped to attention when Destro walked between them, stretching his tired muscles from the long flight back from Colombia. His private Gulfstream G-V had landed at the private airstrip situated on the edge of the land holdings more than an hour ago, and he needed to relax from the agonizingly slow trip up the winding roads that penetrated the valley.

The leather satchel with Tomas Arriscaldo’s ten million dollars of bearer bonds felt like it weighed a ton when he set the bag down on his desk. He took a moment to think about the drug lord’s request, and sat in his armchair to ponder the contacts he would need to employ in the Ukraine to fill his needs.

Destro stretched and felt a small pop in his shoulder when he worked a kink in the muscles there. The trip had been much too long, and he wasn’t getting any younger. Reaching to the heavy base ring that held his shiny stainless steel mask in place, he found the secret thumbscrew that unlocked his headgear. After releasing the mask, which split into halves for Destro to lift off his head, he felt immensely better.

The laird had traded the white linen tropical-weight clothing he wore during his visit to Medellin with more appropriate clothes for his surroundings. A black, knit sweater covered his torso, and it was matched with a pair of comfortable woolen trousers. One of the guards had stoked a fire in the large stone fire basin in the throne room, and its warmth was a welcome chaser to the chill of the weather outside.

A voice from the throne room’s entrance drew Destro’s attention to where his guards stood their post. “Well, well, surprise, surprise. When were you going to tell me you were home?”

There was no doubt in Destro’s mind who the voice belonged to - the raven-haired, bespectacled beauty that was the prime focus in his life. Baroness Anastasia DeCobray, the top intelligence officer in Cobra before the organization’s defeat, strutted into the throne room to greet her significant other.

Anastasia moved smoothly, with the feminine sway in her hips that mesmerized men for as long as history could record. She wore a form-fitting black cotton sweater that accentuated her very sleek curves, and a flowing skirt with heeled shoes that clicked across the hard stone floor.

“The trip took a lot out of me, darling,” Destro said, spreading his arms to take Anastasia into a warm embrace.

“Yes, how are those quaint little Colombians?” Anastasia asked, planting a warm kiss on Destro’s lips to welcome him back.

“The drug smuggler I met with just might have a working plan,” Destro replied. “He didn’t give me any details, but he is out to cripple American trade through the Panama Canal as retribution for all of the successful arrests against his drug trade. The attacks on the police stations in those three American cities were his warning.”

“Bah!” Anastasia scoffed. “The drug trade disgusts me. When we were taking action with Cobra, no matter how misguided Cobra Commander ever got, at least it was for an ideal. This backwater thug is just in it for the money.”

“That may be so,” Destro said. “But with Cobra Commander essentially in hiding on Cobra Island, and our global network of resources decimated for the last several years, the legitimate arms business that M.A.R.S. is transacting is what keeps us in our chosen lifestyle. I am certainly not afraid of Tomas Arriscaldo, and I will surely take his money since I am a businessman as well.”

“So, are you going to provide what he needs?” Anastasia asked.

“His down payment is on the desk. Ten million American dollars.”

“I guess that means you accepted.”

Destro nodded silently.

Anastasia curled up in Destro’s lap and brushed her fingertips across the flesh of his cheek. Batting her eyelashes, she leaned in to whisper, “Have I told you how much I missed you when you were away?”

***

###  _Kupper Municipal Airport_  
 _Manville, New Jersey_  
 _0705 hours, October 28, 2000_

The bright orange sun hung low over the horizon as it began its slow climb up into the daytime sky. Birds had begun to chirp in the early morning breeze, waking their young in the nests built among the trees that surrounded the small civil aviation facility in the low foothills of central New Jersey. The distant rattle of a small Piper Cub being started by its owner, for a leisurely weekend flight between Kupper and the larger, civil-commercial FBO field at West Trenton, was the only man-made sound breaking the tranquil dawn.

Listening quietly to the bird sounds and the sputtering of the Piper’s familiar old piston engine, retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) Kurt “Crypto” Williams lounged in a small folding chair that he had borrowed from the airport’s resident Civil Air Patrol squadron. A pair of dark sunglasses rested on the bridge of his nose, shielding his semi-closed eyes from the brightening sunlight, while the former officer reflected in this, his favorite spot to get away from it all.

Lt. Williams liked the activity of the civil airport, the takeoffs and landings along the single runway as student pilots and veterans alike took to the skies for something other than combat. He admired the strangely shaped experimentals that frequented the small airport, on their way to air shows, or stopping at the fuel bunker to top off their gas tanks before towing advertising banners over local events or the Jersey Shore’s thousands of loyal summer beach goers.

A voice from behind broke the former sailor’s reverie in the peace of the morning. Lt. Williams twisted in his chair to face the source of the gruff vocalization that sounded like a combination of snort and laugh.

“Why is it, that someone hangs out at an airport, and doesn’t bother flying around in an airplane?” Colonel Mark McCabe, the Civil Air Patrol’s Raritan Valley squadron commander, asked as he chucked the lieutenant on his shoulder. “Is there something in the avgas fumes that attracts your kind?”

“I just like this place,” Lt. Williams replied. “Lots of childhood…” His voice drifted off, as he glanced in the direction of the battered, old aluminum hangar that he drilled his CAP cadet flight in as a youth. “ _Lots of good childhood… memories_.”

With the soft tinkle of an aging metal chain around his neck, Lt. Williams drew a set of dog tags out from under the plain blue tee shirt that he wore. Two of them were still somewhat shiny, while the third was beaten up and dented. Like a set of Oriental meditation balls, the officer flipped the thin metal disks between his fingers, thoughtfully rubbing the beaten up tag after a few moments.

“You know,” McCabe said, looking out at the horizon and trying to figure out if the weather was going to stay cloud-free. “I could use someone to ride as ballast in the right seat of my bird. How would you like a free trip down to McGuire and back? I’ll take you for a beer at the base officer’s club while we’re there.”

“What’s the flight all about?” Lt. Williams asked, observing the CAP colonel as he clipped his air charts to a kneeboard and stretched his sixty-plus year old frame to its full height of five feet, five inches. The Colonel’s body still fit into an old, sage green Vietnam-era flight suit, which he had worn while flying RF-8A Crusader reconnaissance planes for the U.S. Navy, almost another lifetime before.

“Just keeping up with routine air navigation stuff, so I can teach some of the new cadets how to do it. I figured that you might enjoy a ride, and I don’t mind having the company.”

“Well,” Lt. Williams replied softly, mocking a glance at his prized Fossil wristwatch – a well-worn gift from an old college girlfriend – and rubbing his chin. “I haven’t got any pressing engagements at this very moment. Frank’s Chicken House isn’t going to be open for a while. Why the heck not?”

“I knew that I could get you into an airplane, for all the days that you just come out here to think and watch all the goings-on,” McCabe said. “Come on, mister. If you want, I’ll even let you handle the stick for a while.”

***

### McGuire Air Force Base  
Burlington County, New Jersey  
0900 hours, local time

Colonel McCabe’s lightweight Cessna Skylane 172 motored into the McGuire Air Force Base air defense identification zone with about a thousand feet of altitude. After a quick authorization call to the approach tower, McCabe received clearance to land on an older auxiliary runway, which used to be the field’s first main runway back in the days when the base operated the P-38 Lightning fighters that were flown by its namesake, Major Thomas B. McGuire.

At the very end of the runway was a parking ramp connected to an isolated stretch of tarmac, and the McGuire AFB Flying Club, a squat, brick structure that also housed the Civil Air Patrol’s New Jersey Wing Headquarters.

In the distance, where the primary flurry of activity happened on the sprawling Air Mobility Command base, rows of C-141B Starlifter transports of the USAF Reserve’s 438th Airlift Wing and KC-135 Stratotankers of the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 108th Air Refueling Group were neatly parked on the main ramp. Air Force Reserve flight line maintenance teams and the aircraft’s Reserve and Air National Guard crews prepared for the variety of support missions that the combined wing flew in their area of responsibility.

McCabe’s 172 rolled into the nearly empty Flying Club parking ramp, taking up a space between a twin-engine business aircraft and a tied-down plane shrouded in a huge canvas cover. When the turbo-charged piston engine finally sputtered to a stop, and the spinning prop was safe, McCabe opened his door and climbed out into the southern New Jersey sunlight, smiling when he felt the warmth of the sunbeams.

Lt. Williams was a few steps behind, climbing out of the right seat and stretching to work out a stiff sensation in his lower back muscles.

“So, what did you think of that ride?” McCabe asked, fishing through a pocket of his flight suit for the key to the CAP wing headquarters, where another set of keys was stored in his office.

“I never tire of seeing how beautiful this area is,” Lt. Williams replied. “Maybe I should take up flying again… it does refuel the senses.”

“Some of the newer CAP pilots would probably jump at the chance to take you up, just to hear you spin a yarn or two about serving overseas,” McCabe suggested. “They’re all tired of my exploits on the _Oriskany_.”

McCabe jiggled his key a moment, as he unlocked the wing offices. Walking inside, he searched around his desk until he found the keys to the CAP wing’s old Jeep, a WWII vintage Willy’s Overland model that the wing pilots shared while visiting McGuire. The old utility vehicle was lovingly nicknamed “The Ground Hack”.

“Sorry, Mark,” Lt. Williams said. “I won’t talk about that stuff anymore. They’re not the kind of memories I like keeping in my head.”

“Well, be that as it may… If you want, I’ll ask around at the next squadron meeting. It’s the least we could do, to give you a few hours here and there and coach you through the basic license and a few solo flights.”

Lt. Williams didn’t respond; instead, he silently climbed into The Ground Hack, while McCabe shook his head and started the old Jeep’s engine. The two men drove away from the auxiliary runway and onto an access road that led to clusters of base facilities and structures just off the airfield.

“So, how is your job with that computer company?” McCabe asked, navigating the jeep toward the McGuire officer’s club.

“They keep me busy. It helps me stay occupied, so I don’t have to remember what happened with the ex.”

“What happened with the ex?”

Lt. Williams looked at the colonel intensely. “Sorry, Mark. Aside from my not wanting to talk about it, there were other things involved. I really _can’t_ talk about it. She’s just dead, and I have to live with it.”

“Sorry, Kurt,” Colonel McCabe said. “But from one ex-sailor to another, you have to let it out sometime. It’s just weighing down on your life and your attitude.”

“I hear you.”

While the two men talked at the bar, the activity in the officer’s club stepped up a notch, as a gaggle of Air Force Reserve pilots came in chattering about their latest escapades, their civilian jobs, and getting drunk on the golf course. Williams paid the pilots no mind, even when one of them elbowed his way up to the bar and almost spilled his drink.

“Oh, ‘scuse me,” the captain said with a slight hiccup, indicating that the men might have started their party on the way in from the flight line. Since Williams was in civilian clothes, and the pilot didn’t recognize him, the reservist automatically assumed he outranked the retired sailor.

“What? No ‘Pardon me, sir’?” the captain added drunkenly, giving Williams another nudge of the elbow. The exchange drew the sailor’s attention away from the bar’s entrance, where a very serious-looking pair of Military Policemen had taken up station.

“Pardon me, sir, but I am a retired Navy officer. I’m just down to have a drink before I go home.”

“ _Navy_ ain’t welcome here. In case you didn’t notice, this is an _Air Force_ officer’s club.” Although the captain seemed docile enough, there was no telling whether he was up to starting a bar fight just to impress his fellow pilots.

McCabe looked past Williams, and his eyes asked whether Williams needed a hand. Williams simply cocked an eyebrow in reply.

“You’re in no condition to keep drinking, sir,” Williams suggested. “I’ll just leave so there’s no trouble.”

“You asked for trouble just by coming in here, Squiddie,” the captain slurred, to the amusement of his pals. Williams kept his expression unchanged, neutral with the slightest hint of a frown, even though he was boiling mad inside.

“This is not the high school cafeteria, sir. I’m sure the Air Force doesn’t agree with bar brawling. Matter of fact, I think it’s important you know why I’m retired from the Navy,” Williams whispered, forcing the captain to lean closer to hear him clearly. At the same time, the reserve officer was picking up a glass beer bottle, preparing to swing it into Williams’ face.

The captain laughed awkwardly. “You can tell me after you’re face down in the street outside.” He raised the beer bottle with his right hand, to swing it at Lt. Williams. The reservist’s companions had turned their attention to a football game on one of the bar’s television sets.

Williams instantly answered the captain’s right hand motion with his own right, the momentum of his movement pushing the beer bottle back onto the bar before it could be employed as a weapon. Lt. Williams clamped hard on the captain’s wrist, pinching a pressure point where nerves and blood vessels met before extending into the captain’s hand. The instant action had cut off the captain’s ability to wiggle his fingers or pull free.

With Williams’ free hand, he launched across his body and stopped short of slamming his palm into the captain’s jaw. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around the officer’s neck.

“Stand down, sir,” Lt. Williams whispered angrily. “You can’t move one hand, and I need to tell you that I was qualified as a Navy SEAL. I could kill you just with one squeeze of my left hand, and your buddies will have your Adam’s Apple dropped into one of their drinks. If you move your other hand in any threatening way, I will see to it that you never fly again.”

To accentuate his point, Williams applied pressure on the captain’s throat, just enough to get him gasping for air.

“You’ve been drinking. I’ve had one glass of iced tea. I intend to come out standing tall, and would prefer not to strike another officer. You have a chance to do the same. Don’t make a dumb call.”

The captain backed down instantly, taking a moment to catch his breath when Williams released his grip on him. Shaking off his fear, the captain calmed down.

“I guess we can let a Squiddie visit. Just this once.” Without further confrontation, he turned to watch the television with his buddies.

***

### Lower Manhattan, New York City  
0912 hours, local time

Sirens echoed through the long valleys formed by mismatched apartment buildings in one of New York’s residential subdivisions. They were responding to reports of shots fired in a small bodega, one of hundreds of independently owned convenience shops nestled in the neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Often cited as important centers of smaller New York neighborhoods within the big city, bodegas drew the locals in from the streets for a place to take a moment of shelter from a hot summer’s day. They were places of amazement, where neighborhood children would press their faces against the outer window glass, dreaming about the day when they would have enough allowance money to buy a few ice creams for their friends to share. Indeed, they were just like the old-fashioned luncheonettes or five-and-dimes in other parts of the vastly diverse city, where people congregated, socialized, and shared the events of the day.

They were also targets, of the roving gangs of toughs who wanted to prove themselves in the warped views of their so-called “friends”. Petty robbers with all manner of knives, guns, or broken bottles, made repeated attempts to clean out the unsuspecting bodega proprietors of their hard-earned daily take.

A white Ford F-150 pickup, equipped with a special utility body and the bright flashing red and blue lights of the NYPD, roared into the intersection where the robbery in progress report had been initiated. One of the “Adam” response vehicles of the local NYPD Emergency Services Unit detachment, the truck squealed to a stop in a covering position, scattering a crowd of surprised passers-by that were going about their daily errands.

“Truck Ten-Alpha-One to Manhattan South Dispatch,” the driver called with the Ford’s two-way radio. “We’re ten-thirty on the scene of the report. We can see several perps threatening the bodega owner with shotguns and automatic pistols.”

The pair of NYPD officers that manned truck 10-A-1 were members of the department’s elite SWAT organization. However, unlike specialist units in other police departments, the ESU was tasked with saving lives just as much as using overwhelming force to enforce the law.

The doors of truck 10-A-1 opened, as the two officers spilled themselves out into the street. Both ESU specialists already wore protective Level III vests of ballistic nylon and Kevlar, screen-printed with their unit’s identification. Completely garbed in Kevlar combat helmets, knit balaclavas, protective gear, police equipment and dark blue tactical uniforms, the cops looked more like aliens than people. Many of the onlookers clucked their tongues or commented on how they wouldn’t want the job of the ESU cops during the hot summer months, with all that stuff to carry around.

The driver was burly and broad shouldered, and he carried his gear with a masculine gait as he cautiously moved across the street toward the bodega. His partner seemed like a skinnier version of the driver, but still capable of moving in the stuffy tactical gear like a stealthy cat on the prowl.

Both ESU officers brandished their M-4 carbines, keeping the barrels pointed in a safe direction. However, the city onlookers knew that the cops were there to do some dirty work. Almost instantly, the street corners became empty. Inside the bodega, the armed robbers had moved away from the windows, probably to take cover with their hostages.

“There’s good cover behind that parked car, Sarge,” the driver of 10-A-1 said. “You want me to watch the front door and try to talk ‘em out?”

“Yeah, Simms,” the other ESU cop said, removing a pair of sunglasses to get a better look at the inside of the bodega. Beneath the glasses, and the bulky Kevlar tactical helmet, Sergeant Claudia Lynn Pearl gazed at the holed up criminals and their two hostages through the storefront’s windows.

The first female ESU cop on the NYPD force, and the only female ESU officer to be promoted to her detachment’s senior sergeant, Pearl was a highly respected and tough member of the Emergency Services Unit. Standing five feet and four inches tall, with a head of dark hair, the officer had a body men would kill for, and fire underneath the exterior. A political sciences graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and then top of her law enforcement class at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University, Pearl wasn’t just another pretty face for the NYPD recruiting posters. She had a good head on her shoulders, and she used it to work her way up in the male-dominated ESU.

“You cover the entrance until the precinct RMP’s arrive to set the perimeter,” Pearl said. “I’ll go look for a back door to this place.”

Pearl worked her way around the corner to an alley that led to the back side of the bodega, as distant sirens marked the approach of NYPD sector cars, patrol units from the nearby precincts, dispatched to form a perimeter and keep the public away. The alley was broad enough for a delivery van to back into and unload goods into a large back door at the bodega. A series of garbage dumpsters also lined one of the aging brick walls of the alley, where tenants of the block’s buildings removed their trash so it could be picked up by the city.

Just as she entered the alleyway and spotted a dumpster for cover, the bodega’s back door opened, and the first of the four robbers exited, looking excitedly back and forth with a shotgun at the ready. When he didn’t see anyone in the alley, he called for his cohorts to head for the back.

Patrolman Simms, Pearl’s partner, began to shout for the robbers to drop their weapons and surrender, using a radio patch from his walkie-talkie to the loudspeaker in their ESU truck. Squeals of brakes and the loud wail of sirens announced the arrival of the local precinct’s sector cars, as beat patrolmen fanned out with pistols drawn to cover the front of the bodega.

“They’re not watching the alley,” the robber with the shotgun said to his compatriots. “We should go now! Blow the owners away and let’s stash the weapons before the cops close in on the alley!”

Pearl listened carefully to the robber’s shouts and timed her assault in her head. She didn’t know the inside layout of the bodega’s storage area and reefer, or how much cover the guys inside had. She needed to take the criminals down before they could kill the hostages. Timing was of the essence, and she couldn’t speak with her partner on the radio, because the robber with the shotgun could hear. It was up to her to make it work.

Sergeant Pearl checked the heft of her M-4, which was attached to a tactical rig that allowed her to aim and fire it with one hand if need be. Bracing herself against the wall of the dumpster with her free hand, she counted off five seconds in her head, and listened as hurried footfalls entered the alleyway.

“C’mon! We’re losin’ time!” the shotgun robber shouted again, as two of his partners joined him. The men milled about at the bodega’s back door waiting for the last robber inside to finish off the hostages. “Will ya shoot that _pendeja_ and the old man, already? _Vamanos, retrasado_!”

The robber’s voice was insistent, Pearl thought. The one with the shotgun was likely the ringleader, and he was getting desperate to leave with whatever loot they had taken from the bodega owners. Desperation will make the cornered animal more dangerous. She had to stop them from getting anywhere. The time was now.

Pushing herself off the brick wall and into the alley, Pearl sprang to her feet, the M-4 aimed at hip level and ready to fire. “Freeze, assholes! NYPD!” she yelled at the robbers. “Drop your weapons and assume the position!”

The leader whirled to face his exit route, bringing his shotgun up to shooting position with one hand and raising a defiant middle finger with the other. “ _Mamame la pinga_ , bitch cop! Step your _puta_ ass off, before we waste the _pendeja_ inside!”

Pearl steadied her stance, anchoring herself into her place between the robbers and their getaway route. “I’m not leaving! If you kill the bodega owners, neither are you! Surrender your weapons and get on the ground! _A hora_! Do it now!” She punctuated her commands by snapping the safety of her sub-machinegun to the “fire” position.

The two other robbers standing with the leader began to panic, since they were only carrying switchblades and the one holding the bodega owners had a pistol, but the trail man also had Pearl’s partner and the other uniforms to deal with. If the leader went down, the two thugs would be defenseless. Yet, they stood their ground behind the shotgun-toting leader as he threatened the female cop.

The movements were simultaneous. The thug’s shotgun barrel drooped as he began to squeeze the trigger, while Pearl’s barrel snapped up from its safe direction in response. The shotgun barked, and Sergeant Pearl’s nerves and sinews tightened instinctively. Her M-4 also fired, two bursts of three rapid-fire rounds each.

There was tightness in the ESU sergeant’s chest as she thought she felt an impact near the center of her Kevlar bulletproof vest. She stumbled backward as all three thugs went down screaming from wounds her return fire inflicted. She felt a widespread and blinding pain on her chest and her head slammed onto the concrete sidewalk.

As a red haze blurred her vision, Pearl could hear her partner singing out on the tactical radio, “Interior is secure! One bad guy is down! Sergeant Pearl, do you copy?”

“Sergeant Pearl! Do you copy?”

The sergeant’s vision had gone black by the time her partner discovered her lying in the alleyway across from the writhing criminals.


	4. Incomplete - Crypto in Bogota and Medellin

***

_Bogota International Airport, Colombia_

The American Eagle regional jet connection from Colon, Panama landed at Bogota International Airport just after dusk, when the sun began to set in the west, slipping to the very edge of the horizon. The fifty passengers aboard, Crypto included, were taken aback by the sight of so many military police moving about the taxiways and patrolling the parking ramps.

The presence of the Army was a necessity for Colombia, since security measures were known to be deficient at the airport. A certain amount of the increased showing by the national armed forces was also due to the general state of alert caused by the terrorist attacks in the United States, perpetrated by Tomas Arriscaldo’s drug cartel.

The American government had turned up the pressure on the Colombian authorities to put the drug lords out of business and protect American lives and business interests in the area, which meant cutting off the flow of lucrative raw and processed drugs heading north. However, due to the dismal position the Colombian Army held, with many of the officers and government officials in charge on the take or sharing profits from the cartels’ drug trade, the show of force was truly just a show.

When the small, Brazilian-built Embraer ERJ-145 airliner reached its arrival gate, the American-made army jeeps that had escorted it in from the main runway peeled aside, heading off to meet another aircraft. The plane shut down its engines, and everyone began the process of deplaning into the main terminal.

After a rapid and very cursory inspection by Colombian customs and immigration people, Crypto found himself in the main arrival hall of the airport. Painted in stark white and light tan, the high-ceilinged space echoed with the hundreds of voices of people moving about, speaking in dozens of native languages.

According to his instructions from the CIA station chief in Panama, the lieutenant was to be met by the baggage claim for his flight. He stood at the bag carousel, watching other people approach and leave, but no one had attempted to strike up a conversation.

The officer didn’t change his countenance as he watched and thought. He understood the intelligence game. It was likely that he was already being observed and sized up by the CIA field agent. Perhaps it was the businessman in a white linen suit, who was leaning on a cement support beam and reading the _London Financial Times_ when he passed. Or maybe the custodian who seemed to hover around him as she swept the floor was the contact he was there to meet.

After waiting for almost three hours at the bag claim and five cups of a very strong, dark local coffee later, the terminal thinned out, leaving Crypto almost alone. Some of the concessionaires even started closing up, as the last flight of the day to arrive was announced over the public address speakers. There was still no contact to be found.

Crypto considered for a moment that the idea of CIA support was total hogwash and the usual inter-agency rivalry left him hanging out to dry, losing precious time in Colombia when he should’ve been preparing to find the supposed informant. Maybe the CIA simply wanted him to give up and go home, so that they could be the heroes and turn in all the juicy intelligence this guy was about to offer. Perhaps they didn’t want to share their sandbox with a Naval Intelligence officer; not even one with a set of classified G. I. Joe credentials.

Crypto gathered up the camera bag and rollaway that he had packed for the trip, and made his way to the taxi stands. Hopefully, the hotel reservation he had in one of the American-influenced properties downtown wasn’t fake.

When he reached the taxi line, Crypto was about to step off the curb and hail an approaching taxi. Suddenly, a middle-aged woman in tattered clothing approached.

“Can you give something for a poor lady?” she asked in Spanish.

Crypto’s face took on a blank look. His Spanish was very limited, so he shrugged his shoulders and managed to say, “ _Yo no comprende._ ”

The beggar cupped her hands and presented them to Crypto, and he nodded his understanding. He fished around in his pockets and dropped all the coins he had into her waiting hands.

“You should be more careful in Bogota,” the woman said in English. “Pickpockets and the like prey on rich, American tourists around the airport.” She pointed to a stylized silver ring on the fourth finger of his right hand, which was the generic Navy version of a popular “school ring” design. “I like the American Navy. Are you here for shore leave?”

Crypto recognized the code phrase from the Panama station chief’s briefing. He replied with the rehearsed counter-sign, “Been out for a long time, but it was better than a Princess Cruise any day.”

The woman’s voice fell to a hush. “Please come. Mister Bullard is waiting in his car.” She beckoned Crypto to follow her. When she started walking, her posture and gait immediately changed to a natural, brisk movement. She was obviously not as old as she wanted to appear.

Raymond Guillaume Bullard sat in an old Ford pickup, painted red but with more rust spots than color. He was in his early thirties and built like a tough farmer. His skin was very tanned in color, not unlike the rugged natives of Colombia’s working class. He was born the son of an American plantation developer and his Colombian wife, and obviously took on more of the chiseled facial features and Latino accent from his mother than any identifying characteristics of his Caucasian father.

“Climb in,” Bullard said curtly. “We’re in a hurry.”

The beggar woman took Crypto’s bags and climbed with them into the bed of the pickup, covering the luggage with a canvas tarpaulin and then sitting next to the small sliding rear window of the cab. Bullard started the truck and maneuvered quickly into the honking morass of intermingled cars and taxis on their way out of the airport.

“So, you’re the guy who the military wants to carry this snitch’s information home,” Bullard said, looking Crypto over with a critical eye. “You don’t look like much of a tough guy. What corner of Washington did they pluck you out of?”

“None,” Crypto replied evenly. “I’m just an Intel guy, who came from the Naval Reserve in New York.”

“Shit,” Bullard mumbled, his lips curling into an incredulous frown. “They sent a New York paper pusher to take this supposedly “strategic” data back to the States? Have you even been deployed operationally anywhere?”

Crypto’s face betrayed nothing when he responded. “I fired a few shots in the Gulf.”

“So did a lot of people,” Bullard stated. “I think I’d much rather leave you in the safe house while I handle the dead drop arrangements and negotiate with the informant.”

“I have my orders,” Crypto growled. “You will identify this man and I will talk to him about this information he has. You can check with Langley or whoever you fuckin’ please to confirm that.”

“And what will you do if you get into trouble?” Bullard asked. “This guy says he works in Tomas Arriscaldo’s inner circle. If the drug baron’s people catch wind of you, you’ll have your throat slit before even having a chance to talk your way out of it. You certainly don’t look like you’d fit in much as a local here, and I don’t think you’re tough enough to take on any trouble if it does come up.”

“You’d better hope no trouble comes up. You’re supposed to cover me. I can handle myself just fine.” Crypto’s stare told Bullard plenty – the officer wasn’t about to admit any more than he had to. He was a player.

The CIA agent settled into the ratty seat of the pickup and focused on his driving. “We’ll be at the safe house in thirty minutes. You can catch some sleep there if you like, and we’ll meet in the morning to get started.”

“If you don’t mind just dropping me off there,” Crypto said. “I’ll decide when my work day starts.”

***

 _Avenida Bolivar_  
Medellin, Colombia  
The next day…

The streets and sidewalks of Medellin were full of people, going about their daily routines. Under the full waxing sun, the temperature climbed to nearly ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit and many people crowded under the gaudily colored storefront awnings to seek a respite from the oppressive rays.

Crypto dabbed a handkerchief across his forehead to wick away the beads of perspiration forming there. It was already sweat-soaked from numerous uses during the midday hour, as he walked the avenue, snapping photos of the architecturally diverse buildings and churches in the area with his professional-grade digital camera.

As he swept away the latest drops of salty moisture, the officer spotted Bullard’s red pickup parked in the shadows of an alleyway. He made no sign of recognition or greeting to the CIA operative, who was probably sitting where the average passers-by couldn’t easily identify him anyway.

Crypto continued absently walking around and snapping photos. That is, until he saw two men in neatly pressed, tan cargo pants and white button down shirts making the crowds give way. The leather straps over each shoulder and the holsters tucked under each man’s armpit made it obvious that the men were some bigwig’s bodyguards. Hanging opposite of the holsters and their equally foreboding 9mm automatic pistols, the men also kept loaded Mini-UZI sub-machineguns ready to grab at a moment’s notice.

While the men looked like they had the swagger of soldiers, or even Colombian Special Forces assigned to some sort of government protective detail, something did not seem right about them.

The tiny ear bud concealed in the frame of Crypto’s sunglasses buzzed with a transmission from Bullard. “You’ve got two bad guys rolling toward you. I think you’d better clear out of the street.”

The men were still too far to hear a whisper from Crypto, so he tucked his chin a little closer to the tiny bug sewn into the collar of his cotton tee-shirt. “No way. I’m not turning tail until the drop’s complete.”

“These guys are plenty armed and look plenty dangerous. And you didn’t take a sidearm with you.”

“They’d have a field day if they found a piece on me,” Crypto urged. “I’m staying. I can handle this.”

“It’s your funeral,” Bullard replied, raising a set of tiny binoculars to his eyes as he looked for whoever was being escorted by such well armed men. When he saw a series of faces materialize out of the spreading crowd, one especially, he almost broke Crypto’s cover with his next transmission.

“Get the fuck out of there, sailor! Those guys are with Tomas Arriscaldo! He’s one of the Medellin drug lords!”

“No way,” Crypto whispered gruffly. “I’m gonna get some good shots of the asshole while I’m standing in range of him.” The officer never revealed that at his Pentagon briefing, Arriscaldo’s name came up as a potential planner of the police station attacks, as well as the fact that the Detroit attacker revealed a street dealer associated with Arriscaldo’s organization.

Fully playing his role of absent-minded American tourist, he didn’t stop taking photos of the street and teeming crowds until one of the bodyguards took hold of the back of his collar and angrily told him to move away in Spanish.

“ _Yo no comprende,_ ” Crypto said, trying to make his broken Spanish believable. His lack of fluency wasn’t far from the truth. “ _Yo esta… una… Americano_.”

“Move away,” the thug repeated in thickly accented English.

“I’m just walking here,” Crypto added, resisting the urge to go into “New York City” mode and get in the man’s face. The thug frowned, and Crypto felt a pipe-shaped object poke him in the gut. One of the bodyguards had his shooting hand on his Mini-UZI and was making his point well known.

“Move away, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Okay, okay,” Crypto replied, raising his opened hands up to show the men he wasn’t a threat. The naval officer took a couple of steps back and turned as if to join some locals standing along the back wall of a fruit stand.

Arriscaldo had watched his men turning Crypto away and said something quietly to another armed tough walking at his side. The senior bodyguard looked in Crypto’s direction and snapped his fingers, without having to shout a command to his men. They turned instantly and took Crypto’s arms, pinning one behind his back. One of them relieved the officer of his digital camera and sunglasses, and steered him toward Arriscaldo.

“Hey! That’s expensive! Give me back my property!” Crypto complained, feigning indignation.

Tomas Arriscaldo stepped right up to the American officer’s face and gazed at him, his eyes an intense shade of green as they studied Crypto’s eyes. “You take a lot of risks with your expensive property, _Senor_ ,” he said. “Taking photos of people who might not like having their photos taken could get your camera destroyed. You might even be injured. It is a sad fact in our city that street violence can happen anywhere.”

Arriscaldo’s English was refined, even though he still spoke with a strong accent. He must’ve been educated internationally at some point in his life. Crypto feared in the depths of his mind that Arriscaldo could see right through his cover. He changed from an indignant tone to one slightly cracked with fear. “I- I- wasn’t photographing people, sir. I am a travel writer. The pictures were of the beautiful buildings in your city.”

Bullard watched the exchange between Crypto and Arriscaldo intently. He almost wanted to break contact and disappear, even leaving the Ford pickup behind for the moment. He was prepared to see the drug lord simply order Crypto shot and left for dead in the middle of the busy street. If Arriscaldo threw the officer’s life away, no one among the crowds watching from the sidewalks would even come forward to speak as a witness anyway. The drug lords were known by all and ruled their illegal fiefdoms through fear.

“You can see for yourself, sir,” Crypto added, as the bodyguard who had taken his camera inspected it. He found the image preview controls and brought up an innocent photograph of a local church on the tiny LCD display.

Arriscaldo looked at the non-threatening images and cycled through them twice before personally returning the camera to Crypto. He let out a laugh, as he beckoned for the bodyguards to release Crypto from their grip. Crypto’s sunglasses were also quickly returned after the bodyguards let go of Crypto’s pinned arm.

“You are a good photographer of buildings,” he said. “Make sure you keep it that way. I trust your writings about our city will help many tourists find the best places to see.”

“If my editor pays me for the story, I guess it will,” Crypto replied absently.

“ _Vamanos_ ,” Arriscaldo said curtly, while the bodyguards backed Crypto off a few feet before turning their attention to other onlookers.

Crypto held his composure, despite wanting to race for a quiet corner to thank his lucky stars that his cover story and playacting worked. While the main body of Arriscaldo’s entourage moved on, a portly man tagged along behind. He didn’t seem to be watching where he walked when he crashed right into Crypto, dropping a small stack of papers onto the ground.

Crypto juggled quickly with his hands to save the digital camera, and set it down safely before helping the Colombian with his papers. He felt a crumpled bill shoved into one of his palms, and a quick glance revealed it to be a ten-dollar note of American cash.

“This isn’t my money,” Crypto whispered.

“I have no use for American money,” the portly man replied. “It must belong to you.” He finished gathering his papers and scurried off behind Arriscaldo, who scolded the man in Spanish for being so clumsy and foolish.

Crypto pocketed the crumpled bill and retrieved his camera, finally making his way out of the crowded street, while the passers-by returned to their individual routines around him.

 


	5. La Reina de los Playas

***

###  _La Reina de los Playas_  
 _A coastal village near the Colombia – Panama border_  
 _20 July 2001_

Located along a small, secluded bit of beachfront just south of the Colombian side of its border with Panama, the tiny fishing village of La Reina de los Playas was barely an afterthought in the central government’s scheme of things.

With a resident population of less than a hundred, and a single coast road that ran along the eastern, inland side of the village, very few outsiders ever considered its presence. Colombian army patrols occasionally stopped into the village, more to have an excuse to take a break from their border security duties or to drink a few flasks of local liquor while on the job, than to actually protect the place.

La Reina de los Playas was a fairly self-sufficient village. To an American, the place looked like one bare bones, dirt poor, Third World locality. However, comparatively speaking, the village was prosperous. With a burgeoning fishing industry, and frequent trade with other surrounding communities, La Reina could manage fairly well on its own. The denizens had access to electrical power, irrigation for their few good crop producing patches of land, and were able to obtain modest consumer goods from a port town several hours’ walk away.

If there were any semblance of wealth around, no one would be able to tell by looking. But La Reina was a popular waypoint for Colombian drug smugglers, and they also helped to fund the village’s relative prosperity. The location, just off a national border and adjacent to a small, protected harbor that was usually avoided by government customs service patrols and the Colombian Navy, was something of a safe haven. Smugglers often paid the locals to hide transshipments of contraband and drugs making the first leg of their journey north to the lucrative markets of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The village was abuzz because word had spread about the impending visit of one of the major bosses in the Medellin drug cartel. Marco Tomas Arriscaldo, the equivalent of a Mafia Capo, had risen to his rank by being both brutal and compassionate at the same time. He made allowances for his smugglers to pay fair wages for help loading and unloading the cigarette boats bound for the United States. He assured innocent civilians that they would never be targeted for repercussions if a member of the cartel had become traitorous. But he also insured the continued profitability of his operations, by personally making his ire violently known to at least seventy people. That is, as far as the government and police agencies knew.

The word of Arriscaldo’s visit had spread almost too well, since it had caught the ear of a Central Intelligence Agency operative in the nearby regional capital, and he had asked for assets from the covert arm of the American military’s counter-drug training mission to confirm the visit. The CIA’s Colombia case officer approved the op after consulting with the local DEA team and the U.S. Embassy’s government liaison staffer. And, within twenty-four hours, two of the best Army snipers were shipped from the Army Sniper School at Fort Hunter-Liggett in California down to the Panamanian border to infiltrate the village.

***

Nestled in a hide roughly two thousand meters from La Reina, two men sat back to back as they ate a meal of cold MRE’s and swigs of tepid water from their canteens. Covered in specially-designed ghillie suits, enhanced with various samples of the local flora, the suits broke up the men’s silhouettes and gave them much better camouflage and concealment than the average set of American battle dress utilities.

Neither of the men wore anything that could give them away as Americans, such as distinctive unit patches or rank insignia. Someone would have to pick completely through their dead corpses to find one of their cleverly concealed dog tags or a thin, plastic bar-coded identity plate from SOUTHCOM that had their name and photo on the reverse side.

“How far away are we, you reckon?” the junior member of the sniper team asked softly, trying to mask the sound of his chewing on a dry saltine cracker. He wrinkled his nose at the taste of a slab of freeze-dried and pre-packaged spaghetti and meatballs, but continued to eat because he needed the energy to keep going.

“Two klicks, as the crow flies, Crosshair,” the senior sniper replied. He carefully picked some residue from his MRE food pack’s contents out of his teeth with a small twig that he had whittled to a fine point when the men had made their temporary campsite. “We’ll have to cover it in eight hours undetected, so that we can figure out our ambush position and range out the target.”

Both men were veteran combat snipers, career Special Forces soldiers that were considered members of an outcast society. Calling them loners and cold-hearted killers would be generous. The senior man on the team from Fort Hunter-Liggett was Staff Sergeant Cooper T. “Low Light” MacBride. Among his Army credits was a stint on the famous G. I. Joe Team prior to its 1995 disbanding.

The junior sniper on the team was Corporal Don Fardie, who took on the nickname “Crosshair” when he was partnered up with MacBride as the team spotter and cover man. What Fardie didn’t know about his partner, was that the two men were assigned together for a reason. Someone was keeping a close eye on Fardie’s promising career, and despite MacBride’s gloomy silence on the matter, it was obvious that Fardie’s star was about to rise somehow.

“Shall we head down toward the beach and maneuver along the tree line?” Crosshair asked. “Maybe we can get a better read on the civvies’ daily routines, and where they usually congregate.”

“It’s more risky than an overland zigzag,” Low Light responded. “I’d prefer not to be discovered by one of the village children playing in the sand, or spotted by a fisherman off his course. One pair of eyeballs on our movements could blow this whole op, and put us on the big, bad bull’s eye.”

“Are we due for the last check-in on the SATCOM? Maybe the Intel shop over at Rodman has an update for us…”

MacBride glanced at his cheap digital wristwatch, a Japanese import purchased while they were in the city of Colon and still bearing a faded importer’s label from the Panamanian municipality. Then, he nodded subtly. “Grab the SATCOM handset and contact the spooks over at Rodman. Don’t send voice signals, Crosshair. Encoded text only. You know the drill.”

“Right-o,” Crosshair replied, unclipping a small musette bag from his LBE set. Unfolding a spindly, umbrella-like antenna assembly, he attached wires between the antenna and a handheld receiver, coupling it to a commercial Palm Pilot that had been modified with classified software to serve as a mini-scrambler for the satellite transceiver.

 _Trapper John to Buck Rogers_ , Crosshair scrawled out on the Palm’s notepad program, which instantly translated the shorthand into digitized text and sent it in scrambled burst packets. _The surgeon is almost ready to cut. Have the patient’s vitals changed?_

***

###  _United States Naval Station Rodman_  
 _Panama Canal Zone_

In a windowless room, hidden in the cluster of buildings that composed the small communications facility and utility airfield at Rodman, the sounds of chattering teletypes and buzzing computers made an annoying staccato. The equipment noise seemed to be competing with the rattling and squeaking of an auxiliary air conditioner that had been installed in the room to keep all the sensitive machinery from burning out their electronics.

A small spot of white light on a desk provided illumination for Lt. Williams as he hunched over transcripts of a variety of transmissions that had been copped from quite a few different local sources. Looking for a telltale cell phone conversation, or anything that could give him a clue to help lock down a location for a number of Medellin cartel members, the officer had been poring over transcript after transcript, as quickly as the translators and SIGINT interceptors could put them together. Nearing his thirteenth straight hour of searching the reports, Lt. Williams could feel the pangs of fatigue washing over him, and wanted very badly to have a few winks of sleep instead of a shot of badly brewed Navy lifer’s juice.

His assistant, a naval Cryptographic Technician, passed along a Thermos full of the putrid mess hall concoction when he heard Lt. Williams yawn loudly and saw the officer stretch himself out from the bent over position. Turning back to his computer, the CT nearly spilled his own cup of coffee when he read Crosshair’s incoming message.

“Hey, El-Tee,” the CT said quietly, “someone’s calling for Commander Rogers. Must be a covert op – the call’s coming in as encoded text on the ultra-low frequency satellite band from just over the line in Colombia.”

“Queue up the text messenger and bump it to me, Chief,” Lt. Williams ordered. “I’ll talk to this guy. See if the chief of the watch can find the Commander.”

The CT scurried out of the small office, accidentally slamming the door behind him and causing Lt. Williams to jump in his chair. The officer calmed himself quickly and rested his palms on the ergonomic keyboard in front of his workstation, beginning to craft a short return message.

_This is relay station Romeo-2. Trapper John, please authenticate. The challenge is Mike-Bravo._

***

“I can’t believe this shit!” Crosshair snarled under his breath, as he scanned the returned text message on the Palm Pilot.

“Shh!” Low Light hissed, his ears siphoning through the natural sounds and searching for potential danger. “What’s the problem?”

“Some middle manager over at the squid base is playing radio games. Asking for a countersign.”

Low Light sighed softly, shifting his weight to be more comfortable. His fingertips touched the reassuring ribbed plastic grips of his silenced 9mm Glock 19 automatic. “Standard signals protocol, kid. Don’t blame the squids just because they’re not next door neighbors to poisonous snakes, leeches and giant skeeters. Just get our info, so we can get this snoop job over with.”

_Countersign is Zulu. Have the patient’s vitals changed?_

***

Lt. Williams thumbed through a handful of operations folders until he located the one with the call sign “ _Trapper John_ ”. Apparently, LCDR Rogers’ predilection for television shows extended beyond his own choice of radio call sign. The pair of snipers on the job had apparently eaten it up and the soldiers were playing within the reference, using medical terms to throw off anyone who might intercept the signal despite the scrambling and encoding.

The data Williams found inside the folder floored him. A large amount of the work he had done checking message traffic had been put together to actually discern a piece of Marco Tomas Arriscaldo’s movement itinerary. A part of him hoped that the snipers weren’t there to just take a picture to update the CIA or DEA’s file on the Medellin kingpin.

_Trapper John from Romeo-2. Please re-state your objective._

***

“What the hell?” Crosshair whispered hoarsely. “They want a readback of our mission.”

Low Light began to think carefully, his highly suspicious mind instantly aware that the communication seemed irregular for a covert op. “Wait a sec before you reply, Fardie. You think this guy’s on the level?”

“I can’t imagine that our triply-scrambled SATCOM channel has been compromised,” Crosshair replied. “But there’s always a remote chance that the cartel bought their way into a Colombian SIGINT unit. I think we trained some of their Intel guys at one time.”

“They might be trying to RD/F our position right now, if it is the opposition,” Low Light whispered, wondering how quickly a corrupted Colombian Army radio direction-finding team might appear overhead with a pair of their armed MD-500 scout helicopters in tow. “Send a readback, but no specifics.”

_Romeo-2 from Trapper John. Objective one is to identify our patient and verify what bed he’s sleeping in. Objective two is Tango Whiskey Echo Papa._

***

 _TWEP_ , Williams thought with an inward smile. _Terminate With Extreme Prejudice._ The snipers had instructions to kill Arriscaldo as an objective of opportunity. Lt. Williams was glad that the spook community didn’t send the men in just to take pictures.

_Trapper John from Romeo-2. Both objectives confirmed. Your patient is still headed for the O.R. Begin the surgery at your quickest convenience. Buck Rogers sends his best. Over and out._

Crosshair breathed a sigh of relief. “Romeo-2 is on the level, Low Light. He’s probably Rodman’s duty intelligence officer. We’re confirmed to go in and whack this drug pushing sonufabitch.”

“Okay,” Low Light whispered. He slipped his pistol into a convenient holster under his ghillie suit. “Let’s find us a good shooting position.”

***

### La Reina de los Playas  
Early morning, 21 July 2001

The sound of approaching vehicles woke Low Light from his light snoozing. MacBride blinked once to clear his eyes and shifted slightly in the prone position where he was resting. His .50-caliber heavy sniper rifle was already fixed to shoot, and all he had to do was tuck the stock into the crook of his arm, unsafe the rifle and set the trigger group.

“Vehicles approaching, boss,” Crosshair whispered from his position about twenty meters away.

“Range me for the spot that looks like the village center,” Low Light ordered. Despite being tired, his eyes still focused instantly when the scope of his rifle was brought up.

In the center of the village, a lone woman was out, working at collecting water from the village well. She obviously heard the approach of the vehicles down the paved road, because she stood erect and seemed to be intently listening.

“Range me right on the broad,” Low Light whispered.

Crosshair trained his spotter’s scope on the woman, as she stood transfixed by the vehicle sounds. The small red laser dot the scope used as an aiming aid also calculated the distance between the scope and target. “Scope says seven hundred meters, boss. Well inside the envelope for both our long arms.”

“Okay,” Low Light replied. “Keep your carbine handy. This is where it goes down for us. I’ll take the shot and you over-watch me. We’re gonna have to bug out fast if there’s a big escort.”

“Gotcha,” Crosshair replied.

***

Two vehicles pulled into the village center, both rough-terrain Land Rovers. Arriscaldo climbed out of the trail vehicle, and his six bodyguards surrounded him in a tight perimeter. An eighth man climbed out hesitantly from the Land Rover after one of the bodyguards began shouting to summon the villagers and any of the cartel smugglers that were sleeping in the village huts. The last man didn’t look like a gunman; rather, he was toting a briefcase for Arriscaldo.

Eventually, the shouting drew the villagers out of their huts, and many raised a cheer at the sight of Arriscaldo waiting to visit with them. Low Light decided to make his shot before too many civilians got close and ruined his aim.

“I’m lining up my shot,” Low Light whispered. “Range me on the back of Arriscaldo’s head. He’s the one in the white linen suit.”

“Six-nine-five meters,” Crosshair replied, unslinging his 7.62mm M-21A sniper rifle and preparing it in case Low Light missed. It was done mainly as the sniper team’s standard operating procedure than an actual need, since Low Light never missed in the many instances after he had started Crosshair’s field training.

“You think you can hit a couple of the bodyguards after I take the big boy down, Fardie?” Low Light whispered into his throat mic, glancing in the direction of his spotter’s prone position.

“Diversion, boss?” Crosshair asked. He made an imperceptible nod and added, “Piece of cake.”

Arriscaldo kept his distance from the forming crowd at first, hesitant to move into them until his bodyguards had the village under control. Low Light thought that the drug kingpin was intelligently cautious in that respect, probably from many years of dodging bullets and the hidden weapons of rival pushers and thugs on the Colombian streets.

The back of Arriscaldo’s head filled Low Light’s scope, and his cross hairs centered on the base of the brain stem, a choice target that would ensure a first-shot kill. It was a hard target to hit, but Low Light was confident that he could engage Arriscaldo in a heartbeat if he missed.

The American sniper locked back the bolt of his AMR-600, a customized anti-materiel rifle used for tactical sniping. He slipped a fresh fifty caliber bullet into the firing chamber, his fingertips giving the hand loaded round a final touch check for burrs in the metal that could hinder its flight. When the round was seated, he returned the bolt to ready position silently, and began his breath control exercises.

Arriscaldo stopped about ten feet from the crowd, waving at the cheering locals while his six bodyguards formed a safety line in front of him. The bodyguards brandished handheld sub-machineguns, a mix of Mini-UZI and Heckler & Koch MP-5K models. Across the distance to the hide, the SMG’s would be no threat to the American sniper team’s positions.

“I have a clean shot,” Low Light whispered into his throat mic. “I’m taking it.”

“Ready to wipe out some of the small fish, boss,” Crosshair replied.

Low Light drew in a deep breath, while keeping his scope fixed on the back of Arriscaldo’s head. As he exhaled, he gently squeezed the match-grade trigger with exactly three foot-pounds of pressure and tensed all his muscles for the recoil. His AMR kicked hard into his left shoulder, even with the sound suppressor and a recoil pad fitted to the weapon.

The single round lanced through the air, flying downrange in less than two seconds, and hitting Arriscaldo squarely in the back of his neck. The jacketed steel projectile flew straight and true, its penetration instantly severing Arriscaldo’s spinal column and damaging the base of the brain stem. When the bullet began to tumble, it tore a fist-sized hole out of the front of Arriscaldo’s throat, demolishing his Adam’s apple and windpipe.

The hit’s effects were immediate – the drug kingpin lost all control of his muscles and fell to the ground face first, his own blood spurting out of the sniper round’s exit wound. The massive trauma to the base of his brain stem stopped his heart and breathing completely. There was no chance of recovery, even if the gunmen could evacuate their boss to accessible medical attention.

Screams from the crowd rose from the village center. Low Light’s round had also hit the bodyguard just in front of Arriscaldo, after exiting Arriscaldo’s throat, embedding itself into the back of the bodyguard’s knee. Everyone began to scatter, and the assistant with the briefcase spun about in the open, wondering what to do with himself.

“Two for one, eh?” Crosshair remarked softly, as he took aim at the scattering bodyguards and squeezed off a clean head shot into one that was dropping to a knee with his SMG ready to fire into the trees. “That’s one you don’t see every day.”

“Always pick the right tool for the job, Corporal Fardie,” Low Light whispered, as he drew a fresh round from his ammo pouch and seated it into the open bolt. He aimed for the assistant, still transfixed in his spot, and fired, clipping the man in the side of his body near the rib cage. He went down, squirming for a few seconds before finally lying still.

“Damn,” MacBride remarked softly. “Too much Kentucky windage on that one, but a clean hit anyway.”

One by one, the snipers picked off the small security detail, as the civilians melted away into the village huts for safety. The open village center fell silent after only three minutes of firing, littered with the corpses of the dead _narcotraficantes_.

“Think any of the cigarette boat smugglers are gonna come out to investigate?” Crosshair asked quietly, as he re-slung his M-21A and got to his feet to retrieve the team’s M-4 carbine.

“Probably.” Low Light replied. “We have to move fast. Follow me down to the village center. Keep ten meters between us.”

“Are you fuckin’ nuts?” Crosshair shot back. “If anyone’s still packin’ heat, we’d be out in the open!”

“There’s a secondary mission,” Low Light said. “Classified. We have to retrieve the assistant and the briefcase he is carrying.”

“I can understand the briefcase, boss,” Fardie said, as he began moving toward the village in a tactical crouch. “But why the body? You capped him good.”

“I hit him with a tranq dart,” Low Light admitted. “He’s just out cold. Apparently, he’s an informant, the guy who clued us in on the availability of this ambush. He ‘fessed up to a CIA spook in exchange for us to extract him.”

“Great,” Fardie mumbled. “Taking that fat bastard along just makes our departure more difficult.”

“We’re going to steal a cigarette boat on the water,” Low Light said. “The helo extraction I briefed you about was only the back up exit plan.”

The two snipers stepped out of the tree line and approached the carnage that their firing had left behind. Low Light reached the assistant and hauled his unconscious body up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, motioning to Crosshair to take point, while he drew his silenced 9mm automatic pistol. The briefcase dangled loosely from the assistant’s wrist, connected with a set of handcuffs. It apparently traveled that way often, judging by the chafing and redness on the assistant’s skin.

“Get us to the long dock we saw in the satellite photos,” Low Light said. “Kill anyone you see that’s armed. Just scare the civvies off.”

A few anxious moments later, the pair of snipers reached the long dock that was used to move Arriscaldo’s contraband back and forth between the village and cigarette boats. Several high-speed motorboats were moored along the stout wooden pilings, bumping against the wooden structure, but their skippers were nowhere to be found.

“Lucky break,” Crosshair said into his throat mic. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“Find one with gas in it,” Low Light said, shifting the burden of his gear, Arriscaldo’s assistant, and the briefcase while he shuffled as quickly as he could to the edge of the dock.

Crosshair leaped into one of the boats and checked the fuel gauge. He un-slung his weapons and took off the headpiece of his ghillie suit. “This one’s good,” he called out, reaching for the nearest cleat to slip the boat’s mooring lines.

Low Light passed the assistant’s body to Crosshair, as shouts in frantic Spanish echoed from the village. “Oh, shit,” the senior sniper swore as several cigarette boat skippers stormed out to the dock, armed with a motley assortment of automatic weapons. “Get the motor going, kid!”

Crosshair started up the cigarette boat’s twin diesels, as the freed craft began slipping away from the dock. Low Light leaped into the open cargo area, firing his pistol at the closest smugglers. Random return shots ricocheted off the dock’s wooden surface as the cigarette boat’s engines roared.

After recovering himself on the cargo deck of the boat, Low Light locked and cocked his AMR-600, trading more accurate shots with the smugglers, until Crosshair had the craft directed towards the mouth of the small, protected harbor. None of the smugglers decided to risk pursuit.

As the cigarette boat raced northwest towards Panamanian waters, Low Light moved up to the pilothouse and clapped Crosshair on the shoulder. “You did well, kid. Sorry about not telling you the whole truth about the mission.”

“So long as I can get a hot shower when we bring this package back to Rodman, all’s forgiven, boss,” Crosshair replied. That instant clinched it - Low Light knew that Corporal Fardie would be the right kind of person to keep as a shooting partner.

***

_United States Naval Station Rodman_   
_Panama Canal Zone_

Low Light and Crosshair hauled their prisoner into the small, dimly lit, concrete block interrogation room at the Rodman Naval Support Activity, dumping the portly Colombian assistant to the infamous _narcotraficante_ Tomas Arriscaldo onto a straight-backed metal chair. The door was locked shut behind them with a hollow metal click.

Still groggy from the animal sedative in the tranquilizer round that Low Light hit him with, Juan Luis tried to shake the haze out of his eyes, slumping forward as he attempted to regain his equilibrium.

"Oh, no you don't, you slippery little weasel," Crosshair snarled, clapping his meaty hand onto Luis's shoulder and hauling him back against the chair.

"Let me... go... _señores_..." Luis mumbled. "I am the informant that told you... told you how to... kill... _mi patron_."

"Shut up!" Low Light said, reaching for a set of metal handcuffs that were lying on a nearby table. "I guess your host left these for you." In moments, Low Light had the informant securely handcuffed with his wrists behind the chair.

A key turned in the room's lock, and a man dressed in camouflage fatigues, U.S. Navy name tapes and a Rodman unit badge stepped in.

"Gentlemen," Lieutenant Kurt Williams said in greeting, with a nod to the pair of dirty operators that stood before him. "And, this must be the CIA's current whipping boy."

"Who are you, Lieutenant?" Low Light asked, moving to interject himself between the new arrival and the prisoner.

"I am the Intel Officer of the Watch," Crypto replied. "The name is Williams. I believe you might remember me, Staff Sergeant MacBride."

Low Light nodded, while ignoring a questioning look from Crosshair. "Yes, sir. I believe I do. What brings you to these parts, sir?"

"Same shit that brought you here," the intelligence officer replied. "This scumbag..."

Crypto walked past Low Light and took a second chair, moving it to where he could sit and lean his elbows on his knees. He regarded Juan Luis with a pair of steely, unemotional eyes.

"So, _mi amigo_ ," Crypto said. "Your information about your _patron_ paid off. What are you offering us that is so important that I had to risk my two snipers' lives to bring you in?"

"Where is the briefcase?" Luis asked. "There were papers inside... things you should see..."

Crypto dragged the chair closer to Luis, leaning forward on two of the chair legs to bring their faces a few centimeters apart. "Fuck the papers, Juan!" Crypto snarled. "Papers can be faked! You could've been playing us just to haul your stupid sorry ass out of the hot zone! Maybe my boys should've left you with a fifty-caliber hole in your big fuckin' belly! Or, how about chained to your dead boss with a smokin’ gun in your hand, huh?"

Crypto poked hard at Luis' stomach to punctuate his point, and the Colombian cringed at the discomfort.

"I - I - did not see everything that _mi patron_ had in the attaché, _señor_ ," Luis stammered.

"Then what the fuck good are you?" Crypto asked. "Who's gonna validate your story?"

"Read the papers, _señor Teniente_! Please!" Luis pleaded. "There is a shipping manifest in there. A large consignment of cargo from Odessa in the Ukraine to the port of Baranquillo..."

"Not good enough, shit for brains!" Crypto shouted, small droplets of spit crossing the small gap between the two men. "Was your boss planning to start new terrorist operations to cover the movement of his drugs into the United States, Canada or Mexico?"

"I was never entrusted with his plans, _señor Teniente_ ," Luis insisted. "But I know that the cartel's network of _narcotraficantes_ have been ordered to make new… efforts… around the port of Baranquillo. That's all I know. _Mi patron_ was moving a lot of funds into his organization at Baranquillo and making a number of phone calls to pass along instructions to his _capitanos_."

"Baranquillo is a major eastern port. What's he shipping in? More importantly, what's he setting up there? Has he started a new pipeline for your junk through the Caribbean?"

"You must read the manifests," Luis said. "And there may be other papers that Arriscaldo did not show me which he kept there."

"I should've had my snipers save just the briefcase instead of coming back with you," Crypto snarled. "What do you boys say? Shall we send this guy back to Medellin and drop him in front of one of the cartel heads' _haciendas_ with a sign that reads 'I caused the death of _Señor_ Arriscaldo'? I'm guessing that he'll be found in an alley somewhere by the cops, with an original Colombian Necktie."

"You know the one, don’t you, Juan? It’s high fashion in the Colombian underworld." Crypto drew a finger up from his Adam's Apple to his chin. "They slit your neck this way, and pull your tongue out the hole. All the while, you're choking to death on your own blood."

"Sounds like just the thing, since this asshole don' wanna talk it out with his saviors," Crosshair said, a nasty grin crossing his face. Low Light simply watched the exchanges with a neutral expression and his silenced Beretta cradled in his hands.

Crypto released a sigh and stood up, pushing his chair back and walking around to where Crosshair was leaning against the cement wall. "At ease, Corporal. You boys did an outstanding job, and you look like you could use a break. Go hit the showers and wake Cookie up. He'll whip up anything you guys want in the galley. If the CQ hasn’t got any bunks for you, I'll give you the key to my place and you can sack out. You'll just have to fight over who gets the couch and who takes the rack. I’d say that the couch is the better choice."

"Thank you, sir," Crosshair said, following Low Light out the door. Crypto followed them as far as the door threshold, and closed it behind the snipers.

Crypto whirled about on his heel and saw Luis following him with his eyes. He stalked over to the single table in the room and pounded his fist on it with a loud thwack. "I'm not fuckin' finished with you, _mi amigo_!" he shouted, watching the startled expression form on Luis's face. "What is being shipped into Baranquillo? I have ways of making you give me what I want to know! I can tell that you're hiding something!"

"I don't know!" Luis shouted in fear. "I don't know! _Dios mio_! Please!"

Crypto reached for his waist and with a metallic scrape, drew a Ka-Bar from the hip sheath he wore there. "Why don't I fuckin' believe you? Why should I trust you?" The officer stood behind Luis, holding the knife's saw toothed blade up against the Colombian's throat, close enough for the man to feel the cold steel pressed against his flesh and threatening to slice through. "Tell me, you asshole! Or else this room's gonna be the last fuckin' thing you ever see!"

"I don't know!" Luis screamed, choking back the bile filling his stomach and throat. He wanted to be sick, and his body was beginning to retch uncontrollably as his voice cracked with fear. "The manifest was in Russian! I could only read the words that a Customs official had written! _Por favor, Teniente!_ No kill me, please!"

"What were they?" Crypto said, never shifting the blade from its position a mere hair's breadth away from Luis's jugular vein.

"It was something like 'Machine Parts'... or 'Maritime Parts'... And, he had indicated the shipment was a single, oversized crate... very long..."

“Think harder, Juan!” Crypto shouted in Luis’s ear. “Lives depend on this information. Maybe not here, and maybe not right now, but they do. Thousands of kids that your boss has been poisoning could have a new lease on life if we stop what your cartel’s cooked up.”

“I tell you everything, _Teniente_! I promise I tell you everything!”

Crypto withdrew the knife blade and released his firm grip on Luis’s throat. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll see how much your information pans out for now. But you’re not going anywhere. You’re not collecting on that five million dollar bounty from Washington until we know for damn sure that this isn’t a put up job on your part.”

Lt. Williams turned on his heel to leave the room, and Luis’s eyes followed him. The prisoner didn’t open his mouth to plead for his freedom, since he was busy sobbing to himself from fear. The door slammed shut behind Luis’s interrogator, the single bulb went out, and the captured _narcotraficante_ was shrouded in darkness. He screamed once, but decided to save his voice since no one was likely to care.

***

Low Light leaned against the wall of the hallway outside the interrogation room, giving Crypto the hairy eyeball as he shut and locked the door, flipped off the switch. A single, blood-curdling scream came from the room, obviously Luis’s reaction to the questioning. The sniper didn’t know what Crypto had been doing while in private with Luis, and he really wasn’t thinking about asking.

“What are you doing out here, Staff Sergeant MacBride?” Crypto asked, walking up to the sniper. “I thought I told you to get your shit squared, have a hot meal and some shuteye.”

“Nothing better to do right now,” Low Light replied. “My partner went off to hunt for a hot shower and fresh gear. As I recall, Lieutenant Williams, we used to use our code names amongst ourselves.”

“I remember, Low Light,” Crypto replied. “But that was eight years ago. That was before I went on my way to make my big sacrifice for king and country.”

“Crypto, we all wondered what had happened to you,” Low Light said. “Sergeant Slaughter, Torpedo and I kept our ears to the ground, even after the spooks said that they had lost contact with you and Seagull. We knew the SEAL team that went in with you on the big _Megiddo_ raid brought Seagull’s body home. It was hard to find out, but we did. It’s just a surprise seeing you here and in uniform again, after Agent Spinnaker of the NSA had confided in us that you were allowed to retire when you finally came home.”

“Well, I’m back,” Crypto replied. “And I’ve changed a whole helluva lot since then.”

“I can tell in your eyes, El-Tee,” Low Light observed. “You remind me of me, when I think about some of my boyhood nightmares.”

“I’d rather not talk about it, Low Light,” Crypto said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get the translations from all the materials you recovered in that briefcase.”

“El-Tee, I don’t understand something, sir,” Low Light said. “If you tore apart everything inside that briefcase, why are you torturing the skell we brought in?”

“Anything can be faked, Low Light,” Crypto said. “If his story doesn’t match the data we’re getting out of that briefcase, or if we can’t develop independent confirmation of what my cryptographic translator finds, his information is useless. You basically risked your asses for nothing.”

“Then let’s all hope the info is good, Crypto,” Low Light said, deciding in his head that maybe some rack time would be useful. He yawned slowly. “I’d hate to have to go back out and try again.”

“I’m sure you would,” Crypto replied, heading for his working spaces. “By the way, I take it you were the one who took Arriscaldo down?”

“Snipers aren’t the sort to brag about killing, sir,” Low Light said.

“Well, I can’t wait to read the debrief. Our latest intercepts of cell phone traffic coming from La Reina and the Medellin cartel bosses said you took him out clean. _One shot. One kill._ Those scumbags that were traveling with him didn’t know which end was up. Good shooting, Staff Sergeant.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant Williams,” Low Light said. “There were never any American snipers inside the sovereign borders of Colombia…” The sniper cracked a self-satisfied smile. “But, thanks, anyway.”

***

“So, what did our pair of little lost lambs bring home with them?” asked Lieutenant Commander David “Buck” Rogers, the commander of the American counter-drug training task force stationed at Rodman.

“Well, sir, they brought a big pile of scum for one, a none too appetizing individual,” Williams replied, taking a mouthful of chow and a swig of coffee while the senior officer looked over the interrogation notes. “However, the translations of the documents in the briefcase Staff Sergeant MacBride brought back chained to Senor Luis just might yield some pay dirt.”

“How so?” LCDR Rogers asked.

“There was a shipping and customs manifest in there,” Williams continued. “Luis put some level of importance to it. The manifest was written in Russian, for a large piece of cargo booked from Odessa in the Ukraine to the port of Baranquillo. He also mentioned that Arriscaldo was paying particular attention to his organization in Baranquillo lately.”

“What was the manifest for?”

“The papers said _machine parts_ ,” Williams replied. “However, knowing the cartel, the manifest was obviously false, in order to bypass normal channels and avoid a detailed inspection. Whatever is being delivered is already assured of clearing customs, since the paperwork was stamped and approved.

“We ran the customs officer’s identity through the DEA’s files, and they have him flagged as a possible on the payoff list for the cartels. As to what is really in there, it could be a new shipment, weapons for the cartel’s thugs, or who knows? Maybe our late friend Tomas had something bigger in the works.”

“Hopefully the notion died with him,” Rogers mused, watching Williams’ thoughtful expression.

“With all due respect, Commander, fat chance of that.”

“I thought so. Do you have anything else?”

“It may be related, and it may not. Our captured materials also included an outbound manifest on a tramp freighter, a Colombian flagged boat, to be exact. She’s an old rust bucket called the _Motor Vessel Theresa Guillermo_. The ship carries a Colombian domestic registry for limited coastal mercantile traffic, and she’s home ported in Baranquillo. The ship and crew are known to frequent a number of West Coast ports, including Mazatlan, Panama City, and San Diego. The leaky tub has carried Medellin and Cali cartel shipments before, but we haven’t been able to intercept the cargoes because of the usual jurisdictional bullshit the corrupt parts of the Colombian government throw up.

“She’s got a date and a destination on the western side of the Panama Canal circled. If there’s contraband going out on her, maybe this time we can catch her in Panamanian waters, where the Colombians can’t bitch and moan about it.”

LCDR Rogers rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “That’s a good clue, Lieutenant. Even if it’s a bust, we can call it a vessel boarding exercise for the local people that my SEAL platoon has been training. We can either intercept her in international waters, or just inside Panama’s twelve-mile limit. The PDF and _Gardia Coastal_ reaction force is sufficient to take the ship without requiring an obvious American presence.”

“If the dates are right, we only have a few days to prepare. I hope your people can handle the takedown.”

“I’m confident they can, Lieutenant. You just keep working on that hard intel.”


	6. Assault on the Theresa Guillermo

***

### United States Naval Station Rodman  
Panama Canal Zone  
Midnight, 03 September 2001

With the termination of the United States’ 99-year lease on the Panama Canal Zone, and its return to the people of Panama, the American military presence had dwindled in the small Central American nation significantly. Government funding cutbacks had gutted the former U. S. Southern Command, which commanded the forces tasked with protecting the Canal and keeping its vital route between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean open.

One of the few remaining American posts in continuing operation was the Rodman Naval Station, which was being used by U. S. Navy and Marine Corps mobile training teams to support the counter-drug efforts of the Panamanian Defense Forces and the besieged government units of its southeastern neighbor, Colombia.

"Okay, people," a Navy SEAL officer called out to a grim-faced element of American and local special operators. "Let’s get your shit squared away and hustle up! Final equipment check in twenty mikes!"

Lieutenant Kurt Williams, a dark-haired man of fairly average looks, who stood at five feet eleven inches tall, sat on a long wooden bench while he checked the workings of his Heckler & Koch MP-5 SD3 silenced 9mm sub-machinegun. The thirty-three year old officer adjusted his diving equipment meticulously, trading glances with a pair of English-speaking Panamanian Coast Guard boarding specialists that he had been working with over the past several weeks.

"I still don’t understand how I get roped into these missions," the lieutenant groused. "I’m supposed to be this unit’s intelligence analyst. I didn’t volunteer for shoot and scoot operations."

"But you wear the silver dolphins, no?" asked Chief Petty Officer Sanchez of the _Gardia Coastal de Panama_ , pointing at the silver SEAL qualification badge that hung from Lt. Williams’s khaki uniform before the officer tucked it into his gear locker. "This means you’re one of the " _Caballeros_ "; the men who help us stop the _narcotraficantes_."

"Well, to be honest with you, Chief," the lieutenant replied. "No one’s supposed to have known about this little qualification badge. I was working in a deployment support office at Earle Weapons Station in New Jersey after I rejoined the Navy from a few years of voluntary retirement. I never agreed to go operational again. Someone in Washington reminded me of a little clause in my paperwork that compelled me to accept this assignment."

"Then you are another victim of these _narcotraficantes_ , no?" Sanchez asked, raising his eyebrow. "They make us all commit to sacrifice more than we wish to."

"I hear you, Chief," Lt. Williams said, zipping up his black rubber and Lycra dry suit. He gave his assault weapon one last check before loading it with a full magazine and tucking it into a special waterproof carrying bag that was strapped to his gear.

 _Believe what you want to_ , the lieutenant thought. _I was more a victim of my country’s bureaucracy than these drug-pushing bozos_. _Especially when my government’s considered me already dead once before and never bothered to bring me out of the shit_ …

 

***

### United States Naval Station Rodman  
Helicopter Flight Line  
0045 hours, local time

Five U. S. Navy helicopters sat on the sprawling flight line that ran almost up to the water’s edge of the canal, across from an old Panamanian naval dock that a SEAL detachment blew up during the hunt for the renegade national leader and drug-runner, Manuel Noriega. They were bathed in an eerie glow, from tall spotlight poles that provided piercing white light through the rolling fog of evaporating water that blew off the canal.

Four of the choppers were standard CH-46 Sea Knight twin-rotor transports, loud workhorses of a flying machine capable of carrying up to forty-four troops. The fifth was a SH-60B+ Block III Ocean Hawk anti-submarine helicopter, detached temporarily from its normal assignment aboard a Pacific Fleet carrier battle group. Other than the Block III Ocean Hawk, the helicopters were still in the process of being modified by the Rodman ground crews to mount M-214 miniguns for self-protection.

As the aircraft went through their final checks, the whirlybird pilots began walking around their machines. They were feeling for anything irregular and looking for themselves to see if the engines and parts were all in place. Meanwhile, the SEAL mission commander assembled the task force on the tarmac for one last run-through of the mission.

Lieutenant Williams flanked the mission commander, Lieutenant Commander David "Buck" Rogers, who was also the lead American advisor for Panamanian drug interdiction operations. "Buck" Rogers was a tiger of a man, compacted in a small but efficient frame. The forty-year-old, five foot five inch powerhouse looked like he could be made of all muscle and sinew, and insisted on being an active participant in the missions he helped the task force plan. He had been a career SEAL, a "Coronado Man, born and bred" as they liked to call themselves.

The other men standing with the two officers comprised Rogers’ command group for every mission. His executive officer was a rookie SEAL lieutenant by the name of Bill Grimes, who Rogers had taken under his wing to groom in his brand of take-charge leadership. Lt. Grimes was still inexperienced, but worked hard to learn the qualities that made Rogers’ reputation so well respected among his SEAL operators.

Rogers’ Command Master Chief, the senior enlisted advisor of the small command, was a salty SEAL named MacGuffin, who was likely pushing fifty, but fought and swore like any fleet sailor itching for combat or a good stiff round of whiskey. If he was a day younger than fifty years old, nobody could tell, since the wrinkles and scars on Master Chief MacGuffin’s face told stories of deep penetration raids in Vietnam, and countless covert jobs that put more mileage on the chief than most men could endure. He walked with a swagger that told all around that he had nothing to prove, because if you looked at him the wrong way, you wouldn’t be looking for long.

The rest of the joint American and Panamanian task force was made up of counter-drug operations veterans. A crack platoon of seventy men and women, selected from Panama’s military, national police and coast guard establishment, comprised the lion’s share of the unit.

The Panamanians were trained and advised by Rogers’ platoon from SEAL Team Five, sixteen men in all, although only a fire team of four or a squad of eight would accompany a typical mission, under orders not to intervene in the actual execution of a task without direct authorization. Secrecy remained important for the American government, who still had to assert that military people weren’t at all involved in the Central and South American nations’ anti-drug efforts.

Four U. S. Coast Guard law enforcement specialists provided expertise on vessel boarding and search procedures, leading the Panamanian task force when needed. They were backed by a growing network of American FBI and DEA agents that gathered the intelligence the task force used to plan their surgical strikes against the major Colombian cartels based in Medellin and Baranquillo. A DEA strike team of eight specially trained agents was permanently posted with the American contingent of the Panama task force.

"Buck" Rogers cleared his throat and the members of the counter-drug task force fell silent instantly. The commander didn’t need a bullhorn to address his people; his commanding tone was forceful enough to sound over the din of the flight line.

"Okay, people, this is it," Rogers said. "The DEA intelligence was confirmed by satellite images taken over Baranquillo. Our target, the freighter _Theresa Guillermo_ , is headed this way. We still suspect that she is carrying a significant load of Colombian cocaine and heroin, which will be discharged somewhere along the Canal between Colon and the Gulf of Panama. Our job is to intercept the ship at the Panamanian twelve-mile limit, stop her and search her, preferably without casualties."

"The ship may have cartel soldiers aboard, to protect the shipment and insure its delivery," Rogers continued. "Every member of the crew is to be searched at least three times and kept under control. Use the plastic flex cuffs to restrain them and always keep them guarded until the sweep is completed. Every one of you, be careful and watch out for your partners. Don’t get dead."

Many of the faces in the assembled unit traded looks and grim smiles before Rogers dismissed them to form into chalks and board the Sea Knights. As the task force members filed out onto the flight line, Rogers turned to face Lieutenant Williams, dismissing his XO and CMC to board the Sea Knight set up as the mission’s command and control bird.

"Well, Lieutenant Williams," Rogers said, clapping the slightly taller man on the shoulder. "Your job is the toughest." He handed Lt. Williams a sealed envelope, as four SEAL operators in dive gear stepped out of a maintenance hangar to join the two officers.

"The intelligence for your part of this has also been confirmed," Rogers continued. "We sent a Keyhole pass over the Colombian naval base at Baranquillo and the techies counted one missing heat bloom. Our suspicions were correct that the cartels had their fingers in the Colombian Navy’s cookie jar. One of their _Type 209_ subs has been put to sea without orders. The spooks think that their intention is to attack us during the raid on the _Theresa Guillermo_ , or to use the freighter as cover in order to enter the canal’s lock network and blow it all to Hell."

"Either way, Lieutenant, your mission is to shadow our assault force and let the Ocean Hawk crew do their job. If they spot any sign of the _Type 209_ , you’re to try to force her to the surface and board her. Don’t take any chances. You got it?"

"I read you, Commander," Lt. Williams said dryly. "You can count on us."

***

### Twenty-five statute miles east of Colon, Panama  
The Gulf of Mexico  
0245 hours, local time

The freighter _Theresa Guillermo_ cruised west towards the Colon entrance to the Panama Canal at its maximum speed of six knots. She was a rusty and well-worn cargo vessel flying the Colombian flag as she plied her course through the calm, dark waves of the western Gulf. A handful of navigation lights burned across the length of the freighter’s hull to illuminate her main weather deck and allow the bridge lookouts to see the waters close aboard. The weather deck was where the occasional member of her sixteen man crew took a smoke break or walked around to get a dose of salty sea air, which was surely better than the hot, sticky conditions in the old ship’s engineering spaces and cargo holds.

The relative calm of the nighttime voyage was broken when the Panamanian counter-drug task force’s Sea Knights swept in from the west at full speed, bathing the cargo ship with hundred-thousand-candlepower "Night Sun" spotlights. From the command and control CH-46, LCDR Rogers’ voice boomed across the sky as he addressed the ship.

"Attention, _Theresa Guillermo_!" Rogers shouted in English and in Spanish. "Attention, _Theresa Guillermo_! This is the Panamanian Defense Force! You will heave to and prepare to be boarded for a security search! Heave to and prepare to be boarded right now! Order all hands onto the weather deck and do not offer resistance to our search team! Comply immediately!"

Over several ship lengths, the _Theresa Guillermo_ slowed until she was nearly stopped, and then her steel anchor dropped from the bow, splashing into the water to keep her in place. When the cargo ship finally halted, the crew reported in ones and twos onto the deck near the loading crane amidships, and the bridge crew stepped out onto a catwalk so they could be seen by the approaching helicopters.

The Navy Sea Knights swept in across the freighter, while their tail gunners scanned the faces and hands of the crewmembers assembling on the weather deck, looking for weapons. The gunners kept their M-214 miniguns trained down and ready to fire, as the lead transport settled into a hover.

The Panamanian task force began fast roping onto the freighter’s deck, instantly deploying to the bridge and main gantry crane to secure the crew. One by one, the specialists and their American advisors slid down to the pitching deck to complete their mission.

Above the activity, Lt. Williams and his four-man SEAL fire team watched the operation from the observation windows of their Block III Ocean Hawk ASW chopper. So far, from a distance, the stop and search was going by the book.

While they were flying out over the Gulf of Mexico, Lt. Williams’s team was going over the available intelligence concerning the missing Colombian submarine. They knew she could run at eleven knots on the surface and over twenty-one knots submerged. The embarked personnel could be anywhere between a skeleton crew of fifteen to its maximum capacity of thirty-four, not counting any _narcotraficante_ bosses or soldiers tagging along.

The pair of Colombian _Type 209_ ’s weren’t fitted to launch American Sub-Harpoon cruise missiles like some of their international sisters, fortunately. And, if the SEAL operators stopped her in time, there’d be no chance for her to torpedo the giant locks that allowed ships to pass along the Canal. All five SEAL operators had memorized the interior layout of the 209’s compartments, making sure to have agreed on their entry point and movement plan if they had to board the rogue submarine.

After a few minutes of orbiting the freighter, the Ocean Hawk’s electronic systems operator tapped Lt. Williams’ forearm to get his attention. "Sir," he said excitedly. "Mike Alert! Mike Alert! The MAD boom is going crazy. I have a submerged contact coming shallow."

Lt. Williams leaned forward in his seat next to the EWO and chucked one of the pilots’ shoulders. "Okay, boys," he said into his intercom microphone. "It’s time to earn your flight pay. Night vision goggles on. Start a north-to-south sweep and look out for her periscope. If they’re both in company, the sub’s probably surfacing to periscope depth to see why the freighter’s stopped."

The pilots nodded simultaneously, flipping down their Aviator’s Night Vision System goggles. The SH-60B dove for the water’s surface, rolling into its search pattern. As the sleek helicopter arced toward the _Theresa Guillermo_ ’s stern, Lt. Williams keyed his helmet microphone into the task force’s radio net.

" _Buck Rogers_ , this is _Bad Karma Leader_ ," Lt. Williams radioed. " _Buck Rogers_ , this is _Bad Karma Leader_. Do you copy, over?"

LCDR Rogers’ voice came back over the airwaves quickly in reply. " _Bad Karma_ , this is _Buck Rogers_. What’s your SITREP?"

"Submerged contact, located close aboard aft, and coming shallow," Lt. Williams reported. "Tell your search teams to be ready to evacuate. The rogue sub may try to torpedo the _Theresa Guillermo_ to take them out."

"You know your orders, _Bad Karma_ ," Rogers said. "If the sub threatens the task force or tries to make for Panama on her own, stop her. At all costs, sailor."

"Copy that, _Buck Rogers_ ," Lt. Williams said. "We’ll DX that boat for you. _Bad Karma Leader_ is out."

The Ocean Hawk tipped slightly while the pilots executed a sharp course change and then the EWO shouted into the crew’s intercom. "Periscope! I have a periscope at nine o’clock!"

The left-seat pilot in the cockpit looked out of the SH-60B and also spotted the thin, tubular object breaking the surface of the water. An oblong, black shape that was darker than the foamy water around the surface surrounded the object. "I’ve got the periscope too," the pilot said. "We’re dropping in for a closer look. Throttling back the engines for noise suppression."

Although the sound of the SH-60B’s beating rotors was masked by the much louder sounds around the _Theresa Guillermo_ travelling through the water, the ASW helicopter crew knew their battle tactics. Cutting back power to the turbine engines allowed the Block III Ocean Hawk’s sound suppression features to work, making it harder for a submarine’s sonar operator to hear the helicopter’s presence overhead.

Lt. Williams cleared out of his seat and motioned for the Ocean Hawk’s crew chief to move into the cabin. The two men slid open the helicopter’s main door and looked out over the swirling waves. A halo of frothy white water began to form around the murky hull shape of the Colombian _Type 209_ , and the waves began to roil in random patterns.

"SEAL team," Lt. Williams said, gripping tightly onto a safety handle while he leaned out of the helicopter to get a good look at the _Type 209_. "The sub’s broaching. She’s coming to the surface and lying off behind the freighter. Let’s try to board her and take the crew down. I’m sure the Colombians would prefer to have their boat back intact."

The other SEAL operators nodded in the cool blue interior light of the Ocean Hawk, their black painted faces appearing like demons in the night. The men slid out of their seats in the rear of the SH-60B to unpack the fast roping equipment from a cargo locker. As they readied the descending lines, the helicopter’s crew chief rotated Lt. Williams’s seat and unpacked the SH-60B’s M-60E3 light machinegun. He quickly used a set of black bungee cords to strap the machinegun to the helicopter’s main door opening and loaded a belt of tracer and armor piercing ammo into its feed ramp.

Lt. Williams patted the crew chief on the shoulder and pointed out the team’s planned penetration point. "We’re planning to start from the stern torpedo room or the aft rescue hatch," he said. "If you see any hostiles popping up on deck or on top of the sail, you cut ‘em down for us, OK?"

"You got it, El-Tee!" the crew chief shouted, resting the butt of the light machinegun against his armpit.

"Pilots!" Lt. Williams called out. "We’re going aboard to seize the submarine. Put us into the drink near the stern, as close to the casing as possible. If you don’t get an ‘all clear’ signal from us in thirty minutes, sink that tub with the Mark Forty-Sixes. Put both fish into her if you have to, and don’t worry about us. Got it?"

"Roger that!" the pilots replied. The men locked the SH-60B into a hover over the submarine’s hull and started the process of arming the pair of Mark 46 air-launched torpedoes that the Block III Ocean Hawk carried on its stub wings.

Lt. Williams looked down into the roiling Gulf water and kicked out the coil of fast roping line, watching it spiral and play out on its way down. The five operators fixed their swim fins on their feet and also made a final check of their equipment to ensure it was all secured. One by one, the black warriors slid down the line and into the water.

The SH-60B rose into the sky to assume a covering position where the crew chief could sweep the sub’s deck with his light machinegun. Lt. Williams and his fire team tethered themselves together with a flexible line made of parachute cord, a 550-strand woven nylon rope that was extremely strong and nearly unbreakable. When all five men were linked, the officer aimed a grapnel gun at the top of the submarine’s deck, where a row of safety rungs ran the length of the vessel.

Quietly, Lt. Williams fired the grapnel gun and when the rubberized steel hook caught one of the safety rungs with a dull clank, he retracted the line and the tension of the winding mechanism pulled the team through the water. The men climbed carefully up the sloped edge of the _Type 209_ ’s teardrop hull one by one, and then laid themselves flat on the rubbery non-skid surface of the outer deck.

***

### Aboard the Colombian Type 209 submarine…

Using silent signals, Lt. Williams motioned to one pair of divers from his team, ordering them to slip into the water and foul the rudder and single screw, so the sub couldn’t escape. The pair of operators took his grapnel gun and climbed back into the water with two Mark 134 underwater satchel charges. It took them exactly three minutes to rig the charges and return to the team’s position, trailing a rubber-encased wire and a small plunger to trigger the explosives. As soon as the operators were safely on deck, they detonated the satchel charges.

A soft thump came from the stern of the submarine and a small cascade of water rose from the area of the _Type 209_ ’s rudder. The explosives, specially designed to make as little noise as possible, fouled the rudder and tore through the sub’s driveshaft, keeping the screw from turning without major repairs. The hull rattled and vibrated a bit under the SEAL team’s feet, but the Americans were sure that the sailors aboard the _Type 209_ would write it off as normal cruising vibrations from the surface waves splashing against the hull. The Colombian sub no longer had the means to maneuver or escape, unless it submerged straight down.

"Okay, guys," Lt. Williams whispered when the five men were huddled together. "We’re going to execute the alpha plan. Entering the casing through the after torpedo-loading hatch, I’ll lead into the stern torpedo room. We sweep from stern to bow, and try to reach the conning tower as quickly as possible to stop a possible torpedo firing solution on the freighter. There’s no reason to believe anyone on board is an innocent or hostage. They’re all probably _narcotraficantes_ or their mercenaries. So kill them all if they resist in any way. Use flash-bangs to clear compartments ahead of your advance. Cover your sectors and watch your fire, especially in the conning tower. I don’t want to fry their weapons panel or anything that we might need. Let’s go kick some ass."

Lt. Williams and one dive pair raised their weapons to cover the deck while the other pair undogged the torpedo-loading hatch. When it opened with a metal grinding squeal, Lt. Williams climbed down the extra-wide opening and slid silently onto the inner deck of the torpedo room. Especially thick rubber soles on his waterproof diving footwear kept him from slipping off balance and made sure his steps didn’t make the usual clatter of regular hard leather combat boots.

Following the habits he developed in SEAL kill houses many years prior to the mission, Lt. Williams swept from left to right, his shooting eye following the small laser dot projected by the aiming aid attached to the barrel of his MP-5 SD3. Apparently, none of the _narcotraficantes_ felt the need to occupy the aft torpedo room, even though about a third of the crew’s sleeping bunks folded out over the torpedo racks in the space.

" _Bad Karma_ section," Lt. Williams whispered into his throat mic. "First space is clear. Come on down."

The other four members of the _Bad Karma_ team slipped into the aft torpedo room and closed the outer casing hatch behind them. One dive pair swept the engineering spaces aft of the torpedo room, and the soft puffing sounds of their sound suppressed weapons echoed through the room four times as they killed the submarine’s engine men. Once the operators returned, they crouched with their backs against the torpedo racks and took a breather.

"Anything noteworthy in the engine room?" Lt. Williams asked the dive pair that had swept it clear.

"Negative, sir," the senior man of the pair reported. "We iced four engineers and found one of the trunk hatches into the bilge bay. It was dogged and somehow fouled from below, so we couldn’t open it. We rigged a surprise to the opening in case the bad guys want to sneak up behind us. The engines, batteries and generators are all working. They won’t figure out the screw and rudders are fouled, unless they try to make turns for speed and find out they’re goin’ nowhere. So far, the boat is neutrally buoyant on the surface, and the ballast tanks are empty."

"Good work, men," Lt. Williams whispered. "Get into your order. We’re going forward."

The dive pairs lined up in their assault order and Lt. Williams tested the watertight hatch leading into the next forward section of the _Type 209_. "Dogged shut," he whispered, motioning for the number two man to come up and unlatch the heavy steel hatch cover. "This one should take us all the way to the conning tower. Keep me covered."

One of the operators killed the dim lights in the torpedo room and Lt. Williams kneeled on the floor next to the forward hatchway, with his MP-5 SD3 suspended by its three-point tactical sling, which allowed one-handed shooting of the SMG, and a flash-bang grenade in his free hand. The others crouched into firing positions directly behind him. "Open it, Two," he whispered to the number two man, who hauled back on the round hatchway handle.

The heavy watertight door swung free easily, but not without making some noise. Six _narcotraficantes_ , armed with AK-47 rifles, were lounging in the galley on the other side. The rabble of men began shouting and scrambling in the confined space to reach for their assault rifles, surprised at the sight of black-suited SEAL operators aboard their boat.

"Flash-bang!" Lt. Williams announced to his team, yanking out the grenade’s safety pin with his teeth. "Fire in the hole!" He tossed the grenade through the hatch as his number two was pushing it closed to serve as a shield. All of the operators protected their eyes and ears when the disorientation grenade cooked off.

The galley filled with smoke as the deafening report tore through the eardrums of the startled _narcotraficantes_. A pair of men closest to the grenade’s detonation point fell to the deck screaming in agony, as blood trickled out of their ears from perforated eardrums. Their eyes were pinched shut from the blinding white discharge of the phosphorescent component of the flash-bang.

Lt. Williams charged into the room first, sweeping left to right and locking his eyes on the targets ahead. The number two man entered directly on his heels to cover him, sweeping from the right. The lieutenant’s MP-5 SD3 puffed six times, firing assassin-style double tap groupings into the three closest _narcotraficantes_. The accurately aimed chest shots instantly knocked the enemy fighters down and took them out of the engagement.

The number two man took out one more of the crewmembers with a clean head shot from his silenced M-4 carbine, blasting a spray of blood and brains against an inner bulkhead as Lt. Williams was forced to maneuver past some galley equipment to advance. The space was tight enough that the lieutenant couldn’t swing his SMG into a good shooting position, and the remaining two _narcotraficantes_ were able to scramble out of his line of fire, to move forward and alert their shipmates.

"No shot!" the number two operator called out, as the rest of the team worked their way inside. They didn’t want to hit the lieutenant with a stray round intended for the escaping _narcotraficantes_.

Lt. Williams knew that it was up to him to silence the remaining bad guys and then to seek cover while his men advanced past the stores and radio rooms, and into the conning tower. He caught up to the slower of the men, snaking his arm around the mercenary’s neck.

With his shooting hand, the lieutenant pulled a black, stainless steel fighting knife from a leg sheath and thrust it upward into the bad guy’s side. The well-used blade cut though instantly, right between two ribs and sent a geyser of red blood gushing out of the wound. A second stabbing thrust into the side of the neck finally brought the _narcotraficante_ soldier down.

The final bad guy escaped into the passageway leading past storerooms, the radio cabin and captain’s sitting room, shouting out short, excited phrases in broken Spanish. The number three operator was able to clip him in the leg with a short, three round burst from his M-4, but the word was already out.

Other than the sub’s captain and two mates, the eight other men on the main deck swarmed aft, gathering up their guns for a standoff against the SEAL team. The submarine’s 1-MC system came to life with a crackle of electricity, as the submarine’s skipper spoke calmly in Spanish, calling for all remaining hands to repel the American boarding party.

"Take up a hasty ambush here. Get ready for them," Lt. Williams whispered to his teammates, picking a spot which provided him some cover. He happened to have ducked out of the fore-and-aft passageway into the crew’s head, and found that he had to lean precariously across the commode to keep his balance and aim where the _narcotraficantes_ were sure to appear. Trying not to give away his hiding place, the officer cautiously poked his eyes out into the passageway, knowing that his teammates were safely ensconced in their own spots.

The narrow passageway between the galley and the forward spaces, including the conning tower, was barely wide enough for two men to squeeze past one another sideways. Lt. Williams’s SEAL team was positioned in such a way that they controlled all the doorways from the crew’s head back to the open galley. The lieutenant spotted movement at the far end of the passageway, and whispered into his throat microphone for his teammates to stand ready.

"I see ‘em," the lieutenant said softly, easing the door of the head shut and leaving a crack to watch from. "I’m gonna let a few pass me before opening up. You guys mow ‘em down before they reach the galley."

"Roger that, Leader," the other men whispered in response.

The crew of the stolen submarine began to appear, armed with a mixed assortment of weapons. Single shots rang out as the first few _narcotraficantes_ tried to draw out the SEAL operators. The suppressed M-4 carbines of the navy commandos answered the sporadic enemy fire, cutting the men down in a hail of subsonic bullets and surprised screams.

A muffled thump came from the rear of the submarine, loud enough to make the whole boat vibrate and shudder. Screams of burning _narcotraficantes_ rolled through the empty passageway to the operators’ ears. "Four to Leader," one of the team members said to Lt. Williams. "Looks like they found my party favors."

The SEAL fire team, from their position in the galley, killed five of the eight charging sailors before pausing to reload their weapons. Lt. Williams took the lull to charge out of the head and forward into an open crew lounge area. He drew his 9mm Beretta pistol as soon as he entered the space, shouting out a blood-curdling yell. He fired his MP-5 SD3 and pistol simultaneously, crossing the weapon barrels while he swept the lounge room. The three remaining _narcotraficantes_ from the conning tower and even two reinforcements from the submarine’s bow went down in the crossfire.

"Next compartment’s clear," the lieutenant whispered into his throat microphone. We have to move quickly to take the conning tower. Rally up on me."

The SEAL team moved forward quickly, taking out three or four more crewmen with knives or quick snap-shots before they reached the conning tower, the heart of the submarine. Without warning, the men stormed the conning tower, where the skipper of the boat, a helmsman and the weapons controller remained.

"Freeze!" Lt. Williams yelled. "Get your hands where we can see them right now!" Another member of the SEAL fire team repeated his orders in Spanish.

The skipper moved slowly, putting the large combat periscope between himself and the commandos. He whispered an order in Spanish and then raced towards the bow torpedo room before the Americans could fire at him. The helmsman got out of his seat behind the steering controls, and the weapons operator worked furiously at the sub’s torpedo control console.

Lt. Williams charged for the torpedo man, tackling him at the waist and smashing his face into the weapons control panel. He brought the Colombian down quickly, but didn’t notice the helmsman drawing an automatic pistol behind them.

As the torpedo man struggled to get loose from the lieutenant’s grasp, kicking and swatting angrily at the officer, the helmsman fired three times into the tangle of bodies. Before he could fire a fourth time, another member of the SEAL team gunned him down with a controlled three round burst.

Lt. Williams’s knife flashed as he stabbed the torpedo man in the neck and then drew the saw-toothed edge across his throat to finish the job. The Colombian sailor crumpled into an unnatural position, half-lying on the deck and half propped against the angular weapons control panel. But the American felt a powerful jolt of pain in his leg when he tried to get up off the floor of the conning tower. He looked himself over and saw a trickle of crimson soaking through the black dry suit, staining the floor where he was stretched out.

"I’m hit, guys," the lieutenant whispered. "I’m hit. Shut the torpedo launching panel down."

"Five is hit too," the number four man reported. "He’s got a gut shot grazing wound, but he’ll live."

The number two man took care of the torpedo panel, shutting down both the main launch controls and the manual launch backup in the torpedo rooms. Then he leaned over the lieutenant with a first aid kit in hand, moving to bind his bullet wounds.

"Son of a bitch!" the lieutenant groaned, as his teammate wrapped a compress around his punctured thigh and jerked the combat dressing tight. "You guys finish sweeping the boat. Make sure to take down anyone left in the bilge bay. Five and I will cover the conning tower in case the skipper returns."

"Roger that, sir!" the three uninjured operators shouted, running forward to secure the rest of the submarine. Muffled shots echoed back through the spaces as the SEAL commandos went on a killing spree.

Lieutenant Williams crawled under the torpedo firing station, using his combat knife to cut as many exposed wires as he could, to insure that if he and the number five man were overpowered or killed, the torpedoes wouldn’t fire.

The radio earpiece in the lieutenant’s ear buzzed for a moment when someone else on the team activated his throat microphone. "Leader, this is Two. You copy, sir?"

"Copy, Two," the lieutenant replied. "What’s your SITREP?"

"Three and Four are sweeping the bilge bay," Two reported. "We caught the boat’s skipper in the forward torpedo room and iced him. Took out two other guys up here too; one of them was an ordnance rating."

"Okay, good," Lt. Williams said. "Check for loaded fish and report back here so I can call the boss."

Only a moment passed before the radio buzzed again. "Uh, sir," Two said, hesitating between each word. "If you can move, sir, I think you should come up here."

Lt. Williams hauled himself to his feet and limped to the forward passageway. He looked at Five, who was clutching at his gut and sitting behind a console with his carbine up. "Five, can you handle holding this position?"

The number five man on the fire team gritted his teeth and waved the barrel of his carbine. "Fuck all of ‘em if they come past me," he growled in true SEAL bravado fashion. "I’ll make their mamas cry."

Using the handholds that lined the forward passageway, the SEAL-qualified lieutenant stumbled forward, cautiously checking each hatchway and room until he passed through the watertight opening into the bow torpedo room. He found Two leaning over a white-painted torpedo, rubbing his chin and studying it. All of the other fish in the racks were black-painted GEC-Marconi Tigerfish with standard ordnance – simple to identify by their markings and the fact that they were what _Jane’s Fighting Ships_ said the Colombian boats carried as armament.

"What do you have, Two?" the lieutenant asked, dragging himself to the torpedo’s warhead and gaping with surprise when he saw what his teammate was looking at.

The nosecone of the torpedo had been removed, and a timing device was attached directly to the exposed warhead, dialing down from twenty minutes. Unlike the British-manufactured Tigerfish, the white torpedo was marked in red Cyrillic writing.

The lieutenant pushed Two back from the warhead and tried to manipulate the timer. He scanned the Cyrillic characters as if they made sense to him, but he only made out one or two key words. However, one symbol that caught his eye, painted on the warhead itself, made him change his expression significantly.

"Two," the lieutenant said quietly. "Get to Three and Four below. I want you to find the forward scuttle ports in the bilge bay and set Mark 134’s inside them. Have them run the detonator up here to the conning tower. You grab Five and set the forward ballast tank fill valves to standby. We have a problem here, and I really need to call the boss."

 

 

***

### In the Type 209’s torpedo room…

" _Bad Karma Leader_ to _Buck Rogers_ , do you copy?" Lt. Williams said into his throat mike. " _Buck Rogers_ , do you copy? Urgent."

"Go, _Bad Karma Leader_ ," LCDR Rogers replied from the command chopper. "What do you have?"

"Colombian sub secured, sir," Lt. Williams said. "Rough count is twenty bad guys aboard, all KIA. Two of us are hit, but survivable."

"Very well, _Bad Karma_ ," Rogers acknowledged. "Good job. We’re about to extract the task force from the _Theresa Guillermo_ now."

"Evacuate everyone from the freighter, _Buck Rogers_ ," Lt. Williams said. "I have a Soviet Type 53 nuclear-tipped torpedo with a detonator and timer attached to the warhead. I don’t think I can tamper with it and not set it off. You have seventeen minutes to bug everyone out of here."

"Evacuate your men, _Bad Karma_ ," Rogers said. "Leave the sub now!"

"No can do, sir," the lieutenant replied. "I’ll send my boys out, but this sub has to be sunk. We can’t risk radiation or a surface nuclear detonation. I can handle it."

"Then kick ass, Lieutenant," LCDR Rogers said. "Good luck."

SEAL operators Two, Three and Four appeared in the forward torpedo room after climbing up the access trunk from the bilge bay. Four trailed a strand of detonation cord behind him and handed a simple plunger detonator to Lt. Williams.

"Get this fish loaded into one of the torpedo tubes, and flood it quickly," the lieutenant ordered, leaning into the manual ramrod device that helped push the weapons into the submarine’s firing tubes. When the white torpedo was safely in a tube and locked away, Three yanked on a handle that flooded the torpedo tube with water.

"We iced five more below," Four said to Lt. Williams, helping the officer up onto his feet. "The booby trap aft took out three of them."

"Okay, men," the lieutenant said. "Good going. Grab Five and get the hell up on deck, right now. You have three minutes before I start to sink this boat."

"We can’t leave you, sir," Four insisted, tugging on the lieutenant’s dry suit.

"Just get the hell outta here," Lt. Williams instructed. "That’s an order. I need all of you off the weather deck before I drop this tub nose-down into the drink. We just loaded a hot nuclear fish in that tube."

The commandos nodded their understanding. Someone had to stay behind to start the submarine on her final dive. "Good luck, sir," Three said. "If you don’t make it, it was an honor serving with you, sir."

"To Hell with that goodbye shit," Lt. Williams swore, grabbing at his leg wound and shoving the men ahead of him towards the conning tower. "We’re gonna drink ourselves silly in Colon soon enough. Now get the fuck off this boat!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" the operators said, hurrying to retrieve their wounded buddy and leave the sub.

Three minutes later, Two reported that the fire team had taken an inflatable life raft and were hooking up to the fast rope so that the SH-60B Ocean Hawk could recover them. When the SEAL signed off, the lieutenant’s radio buzzed again.

" _Bad Karma_ Leader, go!" the officer replied.

" _Buck Rogers_ here, _Bad Karma_ Leader," LCDR Rogers said. "We’re dusting off your team right now. What’s your status?"

"I’m sinking her, sir," Lt. Williams said. "Get everyone clear."

"Not without you, son," Rogers said. "I’m orbiting the area. Start the party and shoot up a red flare for rapid extraction."

"I’m punctured, Boss," the lieutenant said. "There’s no time to wait for me. Get clear!"

"Start the party and cut the shit, _Bad Karma_ Leader," Rogers said. "I’m bringing you home!"

"Aye, sir," Lt. Williams said. He pressed down on the plunger detonator and felt the rumble of the two Mark 134 satchel charges as they blew out the scuttle ports, letting seawater flood the forward bilge bay. After counting thirty seconds, he activated the ballast tank pumps, filling the forward tanks with seawater as well.

From above the vessels, LCDR Rogers’ CH-46 turned in a tight circle directly over the black submarine. The tail gunner watched the boat as it was rocked with the satchel charge explosions and then surrounded by rolling white waves as the ballast tanks started to fill.

"Commander!" the tail gunner reported, leaning out over the CH-46’s rear ramp to watch. "The sub’s going down, sir! She’s at least fifteen degrees down by the bow and the rudder and screw are out of the water! No sign of the last SEAL!"

"Keep looking!" LCDR Rogers shouted over the throbbing beat of the Sea Knight’s twin rotors. "Watch the escape trunks for him!" The mission leader whirled to one of the command chopper’s radiomen. "Make sure all birds have exited the area, Petty Officer. We’ll rendezvous at the Colon international airport!"

Aboard the submarine, Lt. Williams felt the deck tilt as seawater flooded the nose of the Type 209. He scrambled towards the main escape trunk, which was aft of the galley and towards the back of the sub’s sail. His leg wounds weighed him down, making it difficult to walk as the deck pitched higher and higher. The officer fell to his knees when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to fight gravity as the sub slipped below the waves.

Lt. Williams found the ladder leading up to the top of the sail and the submarine’s bridge hatch, which opened up to the outside. He hauled himself up the ladder using both hands and his good leg, making it to the hatch in seconds. Working feverishly, he undogged the heavy steel cover and climbed out into the night, snatching a flare gun from a rack at the top of the ladder.

The tail gunner aboard Rogers’ CH-46 called out another report. "Commander! The sub is now sixty degrees down by the bow and will be totally under in three minutes." For a moment, the gunner lifted his night vision goggles to rub his eyes and noticed a single flare shooting up into the night. "Sir! I see the last SEAL! He’s on top of the sail and waving a grapnel gun!"

"Let’s go, people!" Rogers said, urging all of his support people to head for the transport chopper’s rear ramp. "Get ready to catch that grapnel! Pilots, get over the sail right now!"

The lieutenant looked up into the air and watched the large transport settle in over his head. He knew that with the sub sinking fast, he had only one chance. He aimed the grapnel gun at the open rear ramp and fired the shot line at the chopper’s main cabin. The tough, rubberized steel hook flew up and into the helicopter, hitting its metal floor with a clang, but started to slide out without catching onto anything solid.

"Grab that cable and hook it up!" LCDR Rogers yelled, diving for the floor himself. His gloved hands took hold of the thin grapnel line and he held onto it tightly while other men in the helicopter crew pulled the grappling hook over to a securing rig and fastened it to the airframe.

Lt. Williams tested the line but couldn’t tell if it was secure or not. The downwash from the CH-46 was whipping the shot line around too much, and it had a lot of slack from playing completely out of its spool. With the seconds counting away and tons of water coming up at him, the lieutenant figured it was now or never. Radiation poisoning in the water would probably be better than drowning, but not by much. He secured the grapnel gun to his equipment rig with two of his special snap links, gave the _Type 209_ a final glance and leaped out of the bridge into the open air.

The chopper crew had the grappling hook secured just in time as the line snapped taut under the lieutenant’s weight. "We have him!" the tail gunner shouted, his face twisting into a horrified look when the black shape of the SEAL swung wildly in the air. "We have to climb out fast!" the gunner yelled. "The downwash is blowing him around!"

Lt. Williams hung on tight when he realized the Sea Knight was pulling him away from the submarine. His arms and wrists felt like fire as his palms slipped down the shot line, while he tried to keep himself upright by shifting his weight. He didn’t even see that the violently turbulent air under the CH-46 had swung him back towards the sub’s sail and dive planes.

His body slammed hard against the steel alloy outer skin of the port dive plane and Lt. Williams let go of the shot line, falling upside down. He dangled over the roiling water limply, afraid that the line would get caught on the dive plane and the sub would take him and the chopper down with it.

Luckily for everyone involved, the Sea Knight’s pilots maneuvered away from the sinking _Type 209_ and the shot line didn’t get fouled. As the chopper rose into the moonlit sky, the onboard crew carefully hauled Lt. Williams aboard.

"We’ve got him!" LCDR Rogers yelled to the pilots. "Get the hell outta here!"

When his battered body was brought into the Sea Knight’s cargo cabin, Lt. Williams collapsed at LCDR Rogers’ feet. His voice cracked and was weak, and he tried to bring his right hand up to touch his eyebrow in a salute.

"Lieutenant Williams reporting to task force commander, sir," he said with a raspy cough, as a Navy corpsman unpacked some medical supplies to treat the wounded sailor. "Mission… accomplished."

"Everybody made it, son," LCDR Rogers whispered. "Welcome back."

***

 _United States Naval Station Rodman_  
_Base Dispensary_  
 _Two Days Later – 05 September 2001_

Lt. Williams reclined in his hospital bed as LCDR Rogers stopped by to pay him a visit. His injured leg was wrapped in a lightweight support and rested on a stack of pillows, and a number of bandages protected the handful of cuts and bruises the officer had also sustained in the _Theresa Guillermo_ raid.

"How’s the recovery going?" LCDR Rogers asked. "Did those Intel guys give you the ringer during the debriefing?"

"The recovery’s not too shabby sir," Lt. Williams replied with a smile. "The base surgeons say I bagged a Golden Bullet. As soon as I can travel, the Navy should be sending me home to Earle Weapons Station and offering me a full discharge, finally. Maybe I’ll be able to settle down this time. And as for the debriefing, I think I scared those spooks the CIA sent. They were making phone calls to Washington without even excusing themselves to leave the room."

"That’s because of the nuclear torpedo you sunk, Lieutenant," Rogers said. "They’re saying all over the base that your fire team did a damn good job keeping that thing from going off in the shipping lanes. The last five Keyhole passes indicated no surface radiation. And the sub broke up in a really deep trench after exploding. Too bad the Colombians lost a few million bucks' worth of pirated submarine, but doing the deed was worth it. Now people want to know how the cartel scored one of those Russian bad boys."

"Thanks, sir," the lieutenant said, sipping at a cup of water. "Glad I could help."

"You’re probably gonna get named for the Navy Cross for this little adventure," LCDR Rogers said. "I made sure to sign off the endorsement of the task force for the citation." The senior officer shifted in his chair and looked at the intelligence analyst who never ceased surprising him. "You know, Mister Williams, the task force is gonna miss having you around."

The lieutenant’s eyes became slits as he formed a questioning look. "You said that like I’m not being let out of the Navy just yet."

"I wish I could tell you what the powers-that-be have in mind, son," Rogers said. "All I know is that your departure orders have been accelerated. A plane is coming tonight to collect you. Everything else was ‘need to know’ information."

"Wonderful," Lt. Williams said with a sigh. He reached across the bed and shook LCDR Rogers’ hand as the senior officer stood up to return to his own duties. "Good luck down here, sir. I hope the task force made a difference."


End file.
